Beauty & the Beast: The Ugly Face of Prejudice

Burns survivor Leo meets self-proclaimed beauty addict Yasmin. When 59-year-old Leo from County Durham was 14, a fire at the shop he worked in left him with third-degree burns to his hands, face and legs. Leo survived the fire, but has since undergone over 120 different operations to rectify the damage and has been left with significant scarring. He is fiercely against the use of plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes and believes that women in particular are pressurised to attempt to emulate the physical perfection seen in the media. Leo meets beauty addict Yasmin, who spends 40 days a year doing her make up and would rather be vain than ugly. Yasmin is desperate to have breast surgery and would also like liposuction. With the help of Dr. Laxmi Kathuria, a psychiatrist who specialises in body image, Yasmin and Leo explore the reasons behind Yasmin's obsession with her appearance. Will their shared experience change their perceptions of each other? Will Leo manage to convince Yasmin that surgery is not the answer to her self image issues? And can the pair agree on what it truly means to be beautiful? Throughout the series Adam Pearson, who lives with Neurofibromatosis, which has given him a facial disfigurement, investigates the level of prejudice in society and gives a voice to those normally excluded from the beauty debate. This week Adam devises his own advertising campaign and takes it to the streets to see if the British public are ready to accept a different ideal of beauty.