Plainview-raised 'Today' correspondent Jill Martin shares emotional videos as she shops for wigs amid cancer battle

“Today” lifestyle and commerce contributor Jill Martin, a Plainview native, has posted a series of emotional videos showing herself shopping for wigs and having eyebrow replacements done following hair loss from her breast-cancer chemotherapy.

“Some of you are asking if I lost my if I lost my eyelashes and my eyebrows, which I did,” Martin, 47, with close-cropped blond hair, says in a video uploaded Wednesday  to Instagram Stories, where posts cycle out after 24 hours. “So I'm going to get eyelashes now. Sort of like an ambush makeover on myself,” she jokes. “So I got a wig, which I will show you later, [and I am] getting my eyelashes done and then I will be dressed up as me!”

The hair loss came three weeks after her chemotherapy ended just before Thanksgiving. It still “was a surprise,” she notes, adding lightheartedly, “But as my mother says, ‘You could draw in your eyebrows!’ ”

Shortly afterward, the Southampton resident posted an emotional video from a wig shop. Mentioning a friend named Andrew who is helping her, Martin, wearing a long blond wig and holding back tears, tells the viewers, “This looks just like me, right? It's hard. But,” she says, her voice breaking, “I feel like I could style it. Because it's fun. It's like playing dress-up. I'm dressing up as myself."

In a subsequent video that glides across shelves of wigs on mannequin heads, she reiterates from off-screen, “It’s really hard and strange, but I’ll make believe I’m playing dress-up. Maybe I’ll be a brunette.”

In another video, as she walks down a street, Martin reports, “I just got my eyelashes done,” although the person who had applied them “said there [wasn’t] a lot there to attach it to. I didn’t realize that you attach ...” she says, her voice trailing off. “I don’t know what I thought. But anyway. Thank you for all your nice notes,” she says, brightening. “I feel better. It was a tough day but I feel good about it. And Andrew said something smart to me. He said, ‘Don’t think of it as a wig — think of it as an accessory!’ So when I feel like wearing the accessory, I’ll put it on!”

But in a video Thursday morning, Martin reveals, “The eyelashes already fell off” after one night. She adds that, “Trying on the wig, I know it’s so emotional but I’m glad so many of you can relate … Thank you again. I mean, your messages, I can’t get through all of them even. So nice.”

Martin subsequently posted a photo of herself working out at Brooks Pilates Studio in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, and another of herself with founder and instructor Sarah Brooks. On her own Instagram Stories, Brooks lauded Martin’s “strength and character,” calling it “beyond inspiring. In such a little time knowing you … you have already made a big impact on my life.” Sarah Brooks is not related to Martin’s husband, finance executive Erik Brooks.

Martin told Newsday in a statement, “I am so beyond touched by the number of people who have reached out and are going through the same process. I continue to want to give strength to those who are fighting this disease, and share that it’s okay to laugh, to cry, to be. You can be strong and also vulnerable and that is OK. You can hold both emotions simultaneously.”

Martin earlier this year had tested positive for the breast-cancer predictive BRCA2 gene mutation. Diagnosed soon after with cancer, she underwent a double mastectomy.