A CREDITON woman who lost her hair to alopecia has had a haircut for charity after it grew back.

Josie Sanders (20), still has recurrent episodes of hair loss, but has grown enough to donate to the Little Princess Trust, which makes wigs for people who have lost their hair.

Josie explained: "It's something that I really wanted to do for a long time and it feels brilliant to be able to really give back to them.

“It is a nice feeling that my hair is going to help someone else.”

Ms Sanders was diagnosed with alopecia at the age of four and started losing her hair severely when she was 15.

The haircut, a blonde bob, was the first “proper” cut since then.

"It has grown back now and I thought, well, now is the time to do it," she said.

"And partially just because I don't know if in six months I'll be able to do it, I don't know if it'll still be on my head."

She said she "always had very, very long blonde hair" which was a "huge part" of her identity.

She added: “I think that was one of the hardest things, kind of losing that aspect of myself.

"But it did teach me a lot and and although I would pay any amount of money to get rid of it, I would never want to get rid of the kind of lessons that it's taught me in life."

A video of Josie throwing off her wig on stage at the age of 16 during a visual presentation went viral, attracting more than one million views online.

Of the video going viral she said: "I think it was incredible. It was somewhat surreal."

Ms Sanders said: "I think it was the messages that I got afterwards from young people that also had alopecia or their mothers which really made it completely worth it.

"It was lovely to kind of see those people identifying themselves in me. And then really finding something good out of it."

Josie said she was “proud” to have donated 13 inches of hair to the charity.

She thanked Laura Penny of Jaspers Hair Salon for cutting her hair for her.