Boots reveal real cover star winner

2 min read

Boots Health & Beauty Magazine’s latest issue, out tomorrow, is their first edition to feature a reader, completely unretouched, as the cover star.

Ijay Kalu is the winner of Boots’ nationwide I’m a cover star competition – selected from a huge 8,500 entries, and features on the front cover of the March/April issue.

Boots-cover-star-winner

The I’m a cover star competition launched last September as readers were invited to upload a photo into an online version of the Boots UK Health & Beauty magazine front cover for their chance to appear on the Spring print edition of the magazine. Out of the 8,500 readers who entered the competition, four finalists selected by the magazine production team had the opportunity to take part in a day’s makeover and photo shoot.

You can watch footage of that day at this link – www.bootshealthandbeauty.com

Congratulations to gorgeous cover star Ijay Kalu, 25, who looks wonderful on the magazine cover. “I applied to be a Health & Beauty cover star because I thought it would be great for an ordinary woman like me to be on a beauty magazine,” Ijay explained.  “I am so happy to have been in the competition and winning it is just out of this world because I never win anything. I can’t wait to see the magazine!.”

Ijay’s photo is completely unretouched, and natural, as Boots revealed the whole point of the competition was to show women’s true and natural beauty, as
Una Kent, Director of External Communications, Boots UK explains:  “At Boots we understand women don’t have an airbrushed life and want honest, realistic images from the beauty industry which don’t overpromise.

“We believe that there is no need to use airbrushing techniques in beauty advertising and publishing and there’s no better proof of that than seeing how beautiful and radiant Ijay is on the cover of Boots Health & Beauty Magazine.”
The magazine production team chose the finalists, and Editor Helen Daly explained why Ijay was the overall winner.

We were completely overwhelmed at the response to our I’m a cover star competition,” says Helen. “Getting it down to just one overall winner from 8,500 wasn’t easy. Our four finalists Anne, Laura, Erica and Ijay all looked amazing in front of the camera but it was Ijay’s amazing spirit and energy that showed that she would make an amazing ambassador for real beauty. It’s hard to believe that her shots are unretouched. She’s an inspiration to women up and down the country.

Boots UK first made headlines in this area with the launch of No7’s completely unairbrushed Ta Dah! campaign in 2011. This commitment to displaying realistic, healthy images of women and using age-appropriate models for the products they are promoting was recognised at the Body Confidence awards where Boots UK was plaudited for “the decision to eschew retouching and for celebrating the idea of real women”.

Long may it continue, I say!