It's crazy that this time last year Megan Barton-Hanson was just a regular 20-something girl auditioning for Love Island. Fast forward a year and she found (a short-lived) romance with Wes Nelson, a crazy level of fame, 1.9 million Instagram followers and lucrative advertising deals - not bad going, hey? We've still not put up the photo frame we bought back in 2016.
After an exciting role as a PrettyLittleThing ambassador, Megan has now turned her hand to the beauty industry. That's right, she has signed up with Avon as the face of its new beauty range - and it has a very sweet message behind it.
As part of a new global initiative, Stand4her, the heritage brand has pledged to tackle the issues that are holding women back in all areas of their lives. That means featuring more diverse models in its advertising campaigns.
Surveying over 14,000 women globally, Avon commissioned the research and discovered that 80 per cent of women claim to feel too much pressure from the media to be perfect, and 60 per cent feel pressured to meet a certain beauty standard. According to the study, 40 per cent of women claim that they do not resonate with the women that they see represented in the media, which prompted Avon to look at the women featured in its own campaigns.
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Megan joins a diverse range of faces to front Avon's Perfect Nudes collection, which launches on 15 March. There's male beauty influencer Gary Thompson, also known as The Plastic Boy, 60-year-old influencer Lucia Whitehouse, and Changing Faces ambassador and burns survivor, Catrin Pugh.
Speaking about the campaign, Megan said: "When I came out of Love Island, I was shocked at the volume of cruel comments that I had received about the way I looked, my decision to have plastic surgery, and how I decided to change my body. I even received death threats."
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She continued: "I changed the way I look to make me happy, and no one else. But I do think it’s important to send the message to young girls that having surgery won’t make you feel different on the inside. At 19, when I had my first boob job and nose job, I thought I’d come out super confident, less introverted and shy. That just wasn’t true - plastic surgery doesn’t change who you are on the inside, only your outer shell.
VIDEO: Megan Barton-Hanson before her makeover
"I’m so excited to be working with Avon on this campaign, because I want to send out the message that it’s ok to be different, you don’t have to conform to archaic female stereotypes, whether that relates to the job that you do, how you dress, or whether you choose to have surgery and wear makeup."
