TV gladiators are facing their biggest battle yet – to fight prejudices surrounding alopecia Amazon and Warrior from the Sky One show are fronting a charity campaign to raise awareness of the devastating effects of the hair loss disease.

To get a deeper insight into the condition, they underwent six hours of prosthetic make-up at a Sunderland photoshoot to see how they would look without hair.

Amazon, aka, Zoe Williams, a trained doctor who spent time as a medical student at Sunderland Royal Hospital, said it was an enlightening experience.

"The biggest difference for me was seeing myself without any eyebrows. A lot of people associate alopecia with losing the hair on your head, but don't realise you can lose your facial hair too."

She added: "I had the comfort of knowing the hair loss was only temporary, but I can imagine that if that was something that was out of your control it would be very distressing.

"I have met a lot of people affected by the condition through the charity and it makes you realise that it is not just about appearance, the psychological affects of alopecia are huge."

The head-turning image will be used to promote the work of charity BeBold which reaches out to sufferers of the hair loss disease.

Young sufferers and their families will be able to stay at the camp this summmer to meet others in the same situation and work on building confidence and self- esteem.

A spokesman from the BeBold charity team said: "A lot of the families you meet don't know anybody else with the disease so it really helps to be able to meet other people who are going through the same thing.

"It's great to have Zoe and Daniel involved with us. They work in a scenario where image is of utmost importance so I think it was quite surreal for them to see how visibly different they looked without hair