I refuse to age gracefully but others must learn from my humiliating filler mistakes, says Love Island’s Faye Winter
LOVE Island star Faye Winter says she won’t age gracefully – but hopes others learn from her ‘embarrassing’ filler mistakes.
The 28-year-old said she had a ‘massive wake-up call’ when she saw herself on the seventh series of the reality TV show in 2021.
“My [lip] fillers were massive,” she told The Sun, adding that she suffered burst blood vessels, swelling and lumps in her lips.
“Everyone saw my lips on the show, everyone knows what they look like.
“And now I’m like, actually, yeah, it’s embarrassing to look back and see what I’ve done.
“When I saw myself on TV, that was a massive wake up call.
“My mother, sister and dad had been telling me for ages, ‘Faye, your lips are really big, don’t get any more [filler]’, and I was saying, ‘Shut up you don’t know anything’. But actually, they were deadly serious.
“But really now all I can do is help other people learn from it and also try and get these regulations changed because it’s a multi billion pound industry.”
Faye, who backs The Sun’s Had Our Fill campaign and is calling for change in the aesthetic industry, said she had ‘botched Botox’ for a cheap price just days before entering the villa.
“My whole face dropped,” she said. “I had no eyebrow arch or eye lift.
“It was frozen in a frown position. I had no movement whatsoever in my face, which is just scary because I didn’t know when it was going to come back, and neither did he [the practitioner].
“It was just horrendous and I knew I was going on the show and at that point was crying literally everyday because I was like, ‘How do I get this gone?’
“Everyone always says, ‘You look nothing like your promo shots’.
“Yeah, because it wasn’t my face. I didn’t have my eyebrow shape.
“I didn’t have my eyes because it was so heavy on the top of my head.”
Despite her regrets, Faye still receives ‘tweakments’ – although is far more conscious of who she gets her procedures with.
She said she had her original filler dissolved, but due to her lips stretching, they were wrinkly and “looked like I had smoked 85 fags for the last 80 years”.
She also said it was a shock to see her small lips again, and she was conscious of her appearance.
It led to her having a small amount of filler put back in.
Faye added: “I still have Botox done, I’m very open and honest about that.
“I don’t want to grow old gracefully with wrinkles, and that’s fine. That’s my choice.
“I will only ever go to somebody now that is medically trained, rather than a beautician.
“I go to a dentist now who trained for years and years before going into aesthetics.”
CALLING FOR CHANGE
Faye, from Devon, is helping push for tighter regulations in the UK that would clamp down on people offering procedures without extensive medical training.
Currently there are no laws that prevent anyone from picking up a needle and injecting the faces of Brits with filler.
The Sun’s Fabulous campaign, Had Our Fill, launched in 2020 in conjunction with Save Face, has detailed dozens of botched cosmetic procedures that are the result of lax rules.
Botox is classed as a prescription-only medicine in the UK, which means it should be prescribed and given to a patient by a qualified prescriber (a medical professional).
However, it is commonly injected by people without qualifications at a cheap price – and there is a severe lack of monitoring by the Government.
Non-medics and beauty therapists may have only a few days of training.
Social media and reality TV has largely been blamed for fuelling demand in this dangerous industry.
DON’T FALL FOR CHEAP DEALS
Faye – who came third place with ex-boyfriend Teddy Soares – said the first time she got lip fillers was with a trained medic, and she was over the moon with the results.
But searching for cheaper options on Instagram – where giveaways are often advertised, too – led her to dodgy clinics that only wanted cash payments.
A shocking 70 per cent of women and girls desperate for lip fillers choose their practitioner from social media, a Sun investigation found.
Faye claims one practitioner who claimed to be an anaesthetist turned out to be a property developer, and another claiming to be a dentist only worked on the reception at a dental practice.
“It’s so easy for people to be able to lie in these situations,” Faye said.
Faye didn’t feel as informed about the potential risks of fillers, which largely depend on whether the procedure was done correctly.
She also claims she was encouraged to get work elsewhere on her face, such as her jaw or cheeks, by the clinics.
“I never felt great in myself,” she said. “I’m lucky I’m a strong person and I said no I just want my lips done.
“Whereas if you’re younger and don’t have that confidence, and then you’ve got somebody telling you what you should have done to your face, for them to line their pockets with money, that’s why it’s really dangerous.
“I think we’re at a point where we should be looking out for younger generations, and if I could make them learn through my face and also make the government see this as a massive issue then I’m going to keep doing it.”
HAD OUR FILL
The Sun’s Had our Fill campaign wants the government to:
- Make fillers illegal for those under 18
- Create a UK register for members of the public to find reputable practitioners.
- Crack down on social media sites promoting the procedures
There have been huge victories; from October 2021, it became a criminal offence to give filler or Botox to someone under the age of 18.
And, companies will no longer be able to advertise products such as lip and face fillers to under-18s on social media.
It will soon be illegal to inject Brits with Botox and lip fillers without a licence under plans to stamp out dodgy providers.
But ministers rejected recommendations earlier this year to make fillers prescription only, like Botox.