This Model Is Embracing Her Alopecia—And Showing Off An Amazing Wig In The Process

A model in Australia who lives with hair loss due to alopecia is hoping to raise awareness of the autoimmune disease. Lara Kitchen, 20, recently posted an Instagram video showing herself with and without a wig—and it’s been viewed more than 43,000 times in one day. “Doing this is the scariest thing I have ever done in my entire life,” Kitchen writes in the caption of the video, which starts to the tune of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and shows Kitchen with words like “acceptance” and “brave” written on her face. She details how she began losing her hair in clumps when she was 14, and it greatly impacted her upbringing. Kitchen says she became “the girl that ‘wore a wig,'” and rumors went around that she had cancer.

 Her parents took her to several doctors until one finally diagnosed her with alopecia. “I remember sitting there and just crying in the doctor’s office and taking my wig off as he looked at my head and began to tell me and my mum that the follicle off the hair was still there, but the chances of it growing back were slim,” she writes. She underwent treatments to try to help her hair grow back, but nothing worked, and she has worn wigs ever since.

As you can see in the below video, Kitchen has found human-hair wigs that look gorgeous—and like hair that grew out of her own head—in various styles. Kitchen says she hasn’t been open about her condition until now, but she’s realized she has nothing to be ashamed of. “Yes, my hair is a major physical aspect to my appearance, but my friends and family love me for me,” she said. Check out the full video.