WHAT IT TAKES TO BE

T HIS weekend, 36 beauty queens from England, Scotland and Wales have descended on Cardiff and Newport for the Miss Universe Great Britain 2017 final.

The winner will represent Great Britain in the Miss Universe pageant later this year in an exotic location overseas.

Many outsiders will have preconceived ideas about beauty pageants.

Silk sashes, Hollywood smiles and a line-up of beautiful women praying for “world peace”.

But dig a little deeper and it’s not all glitz and glamour.

In the run-up to the final, contestants have been tasked with a series of fundraising challenges for Strongbones – a charity which helps children from all over the UK with diseases of the bone.

They have also attended group events to support Sheroes Hangout – a project run by the Stop Acid Attacks charity in India which helps women who have survived acid violence.

The winner will visit India during her reign to meet the women personally and to present the money raised by the event.

We caught up with some of the women competing this year and lifted the curtain on beauty queen pageantry.

This is what they said: TRYING to be in a changing room with a group of women running round to get ready while keeping their modesty, sweating and trying to find your clothes, is not all glamorous! If I win I have ambitions to open a domestic violence charity. I would use that to help w om e n change their lives around. This is something that is meaningful for me and if I don’t win I would do it anyway.

Domestic violence is something that has affected myself and my mum personally and is close to my heart.

There is still stigma around it and I think that people should not feel ashamed, embarrassed or shy to talk about these things, because if you don’t talk about it you can never fix the problem.

Doing pageants is something I started doing to build up my confidence and to meet likeminded women.

It is a network of amazing women who are all out to inspire and empower each other so who wouldn’t want to be involved in that?

The best part of the pageant is to get to meet people from lots of different backgrounds, wearing an amazing dress, feeling so beautiful and confident and perfecting your life skills.

The worst part is trying to eat healthily, which I am not very good at because I had a McDonald’s on the way here. I am so lucky as my sponsor is actually a gym – so they have been whipping me

into shape. I WORK in Pandora in Cardiff, where I am senior sales manager.

One of the best things about this whole process is being selected in the first place, it is a huge honour to be able to represent your country.

It is also great to meet all the girls from all round the country and I love all the accents.

The toughest part is the training. I have done a lot of prep for this and spent a lot of time in the gym – twice daily sometimes.

I have also practised my interview prep.

They want someone who knows what they stand for.

If I won it I would definitely introduce myself as Miss Universe Great Britain. It is a huge honour. The hardest part is putting yourself on a stage against all the other girls when we are all different shapes and sizes. I am doing this for confidence.

If I won the title I would get the chance to go to other countries and I like exploring different cultures.

We will get to go to India and meet the victims of acid attacks, which is one of the charities we support.

I think I would be an emotional wreck but it would be really great to meet them.