Opening up to strangers, sharing your insecurities and facing rejection in front of the nation makes finding love on reality TV no easy feat. However, when Cynthia Taylu entered the Love Island Australia villa on Monday, there was a critical part of her identity that she wasnt showing off.

The 23-year-old, who was born in Liberia, west Africa and moved to Australia at age seven, has been vocal about the challenges shes faced with her Afro-textured hair, admitting showing her natural hair leaves her feeling vulnerable as its letting the world know who I really am, and stripping off the layers is confronting.

Promos for the Channel Nine program show the model from Brisbane sporting shiny brown locks with a bold front fringe a very different look to her naturally curly black hair which shes presented in a previous blog post.

Growing up in Australia, I always envied my Caucasian friends hair the texture, the length, and the ease of maintaining their hair, she wrote for Ascension magazine in 2017.