There is such a taboo around cosmetic surgery - and the debate ‘should you, shouldn’t you’. I feel like in the past I've had a lot of judgement about the cosmetic enhancements I’ve had, but I believe it’s your body, you should do what you want.
However, I want to spread awareness about the potential errors. If I can teach one person through my mistakes, then I have done my job.
Botox was my worst cosmetic experience, due to the negative experience I had with it. At the time, I was not educated about the dos and don’ts, so I didn't go to a medically trained professional, but instead to somebody cheap who I found on Instagram.
My muscles paralysed across the top of my forehead, and it just dropped, so I had really droopy eyelids. I couldn't move my forehead at all. I was told, ‘There's nothing you can do. You have got to wait this out until it moves.’
I waited three months, during which time the pressure in my forehead felt like I was constantly frowning. This was all happening when I was doing my promo shots for Love Island and I remember feeling very self-conscious about how I looked. I went to my last audition with my face taped up. I cried every time I looked in the mirror, and I didn't actually know if I was going to be able to do the show because of how horrendous I felt.
That was the moment I said I am never going to somebody who is not medically trained. I’ve learned that they want the best for you. If somebody says, ‘no’, take their advice. If I was to go back to my current practitioner after an appointment, and say, ‘Can you put some more lip filler in’, he would say, ‘Absolutely not’. The aim is to go to somebody who is doing it for your best interests, not just for money.
Getting lip filler aged 23 – my first aesthetic treatment- was a decision I made on my own, and I loved it to begin with. I was always very insecure about my ‘paper cut’ lips because they were small and didn’t frame my big white teeth (the latter I’m very grateful for, thank you dad!).
When I first got them done, it was the best decision ever, but it just carried on and carried on, until I realised that it was actually one of the worst decisions I’ve made. I didn’t go to people who were educated in the field, and they just kept filling me up.
I wasn’t listening to my family and friends every time they said, ‘Oh your lips have got big again’. I hadn't realised how big they had got because I'd done it so gradually.
The turning point in getting them dissolved was when I saw them myself on TV. I thought, ‘Damn, my mum and dad were really telling me the truth when they said they got too big!’
It was definitely a shock to the system when I had the filler dissolved. I remember crying because my lips were smaller than I even remembered. I decided to go back andhave a tiny bit of filler put in. I originally had 4.5 ml put in when I went into the villa, but I only got 0.5 ml put back, which meant that I got the shape that I've always wanted. It's a massive difference, purely because I went to a medically trained professional.
I never want anyone to feel like they can't get it done. Either you're for filler, you're against it, or like me, I'm now one of these people in the middle. I want people to get it done for them and I want them to get done safely. Cheaper isn’t always better.
I love to do what’s me. I’m not going to change that. It’s been almost two years since I appeared on Love Island, a show that really helped me grow as a person and made me look inside myself. It allowed me to say, ‘I've got my flaws, I've seen my flaws, I own up to my flaws. I want to grow and I want to do better’.
Whatever you do in this world, you’ve got to do it for yourself.
Faye appears in Botched? Inside The Beauty Industry on ITV, 8.30pm tonight and on ITVX.
Follow Faye’s Instagram for more insight on the topic.