Being adorned on advertising billboards throughout Bradford has proved to be a major confidence booster for Ayesha Daniels.

She was entered into a competition to take part in the campaign by her mother who felt she needed a fillip after enduring a cancer scare and a divorce.

Now Ayesha, 36, is one of the real women' being used by the cosmetic company in preference to models.

She said: "It was really funny because I had actually entered my mum, Camellia, because I thought she deserved a day of pampering.

"When they rang I thought it was because they had chosen mum but it turned out she had also entered me into the competition."

Ayesha, a mother-of-one, of Dick Lane, Tyersal, Bradford, underwent a lumpectomy to remove cancer from her breast.

She said: "It's been a very difficult time for me because of the cancer scare and because I am going through a divorce.

"When I found the lump I was terrified and feared the worst but fortunately I have now been given the all clear.

"I have a new lease of life and the advert has help improve my self-esteem."

Ayesha, who works as a nail technician, joined 49 other West Yorkshire women for a day of pampering in Manchester to make the advertisement. She said: "It was just what I needed to give my confidence a boost."

Ayesha, a size 12, said she admired the company Dove for trying to promote a more realistic image of the female body.

She said her daughter, also called Ayesha, five, nearly fell out of her car seat when she saw the billboard.

"She was bowled over to see her mum in the advert," she said. "She keeps telling everyone that's my Mummy'."

Ayesha's mother Camellia Butt said: "She really deserved to win the competition because she has been feeling down recently and is going through a difficult time. I am very proud to see her smiling face all over Bradford."

e-mail: jennifer.sugden@bradford.newsquest.co.uk