Once so embarrassed by her condition that she sunbathed in a maxi skirt, Cheryl now loves to flash her mole-covered skin.

A feisty single mum has finally embraced her skin after years of hiding her 300 moles under jumpers and jeans even in the height of summer.

Cheryl Shaw, 33, from Birmingham, was born with congenital melanocytic nevus, a mole condition that occurs in one per cent of babies, and now has over 300 moles across her entire body.

The proud mum of two boys, Javante, 11, and Viter, three, spent most of her life covering up her skin but has transformed her confidence over the last year, and never wants to conceal her moles again.

Cheryl, a health centre manager, said she had no choice but to transform her confidence because she wanted to set an example of self-love for her sons.

She said: “I have to show them that no matter what you look like, no matter what your flaws or abnormalities are, you have to love them and embrace them because otherwise you will never be happy. I came to see that I was never happy and it was only because I started loving myself that I changed.

“In 2018, I realised this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Looking back at all those years where I wasn’t happy and I was depressed, I can’t let my kids go through that, no way.”

After sharing her journey online, Cheryl has been overwhelmed by the positive messages of support she has received.

She explained: “I didn’t really get much support when I was young, so this is why I’m doing it – so that I can help anybody out there who feels like they can’t embrace their flaws.

“People have messaged me saying they’re so proud of what I’m doing and that it’s changed the way they think about themselves, and that makes me very happy. To change the way someone is thinking is just amazing.”

In her early childhood, growing up in Birmingham, Cheryl never felt different from her friends and was not at all troubled by her moles, but things took a turn for the worse when she started high school and became self-conscious.

She said: “When I was about nine or 10, they didn’t bother me at all. It was when I started secondary school that they started to affect me.

“I would literally cover up my whole body. I never wore any mini skirts, and I never used to go swimming. I used to make up excuses so I didn’t have to go swimming in school and then the one time I did go I wore black leggings.”

Although Cheryl did not have to deal with many bullies as she “gave as good as I got”, her own self-criticism was damaging enough and she struggled to deal with the stares she got in public.

“People would come up to me and just ask, ‘What’s that? Chicken pox?’ On the bus to school, a lot of the kids used to look and say, ‘Ew, what’s that?’ and called me a Dalmatian. It made me feel really uncomfortable,” she said.

“If there were loads of children on the bus, I would sit far away from them. If I was sitting on a section of the bus where kids came on, I’d move because I knew they’d stare.”

Although she continued to struggle with exposing her skin in public, once she reached adulthood, Cheryl tried not to let it affect her dating life.

“I never used to date a lot because I didn’t know what people were going to think,” she said. “The people that I have dated have accepted me for me, but when it came to becoming more intimate and showing my legs I found that very difficult.

“So I really couldn’t be myself around the people I used to date.”

Now Cheryl recognises that she was struggling with depression, made worse by her own self-loathing.

She continued: “I noticed as I started to get older that it was starting to affect me mentally. It made me so depressed. As you get older, you start going out with friends, going on girls’ holidays, but I was always too embarrassed to go.

“When I used to go out clubbing, I always used to wear jeans. Clothes shopping would just depress me because I couldn’t wear dresses, so I always used to wear the same outfits.”

At a former job, Cheryl would wear long-sleeved jumpers and jeans all the way through summer because her self-esteem was so low.

She said: “I used to work in KFC when I was 17 and I remember during the summer, I would wear long sleeves.

“I didn’t feel confident enough to wear any dresses, or shorts or anything like that. I’d say I was fine, but I was really boiling.”

Cheryl avoided exposing her skin as much as possible and even sunbathed fully clothed.

She recalled: “When I did go on holiday, my first holiday to Lanzarote, aged 26, I remember sunbathing in a maxi skirt because I didn’t want to take it off, I was too embarrassed.

“It really affected me to the point where I was like, ‘I cannot do this anymore. I feel trapped like I’m in a different world’. I just couldn’t continue with it. I was like that up until May 2018.”

It was while planning a family holiday to Orlando, Florida, for her youngest son’s third birthday, that everything changed for Cheryl.

She was struggling to find clothes to cover up her moles when she realised that could not keep hiding her skin.

She continued: “I realised it was affecting me mentally. I was at a point where I didn’t like me. I had to start liking and loving myself, so I could show my boys that you have to love yourself for who you are in order to be happy.

“I literally broke down crying because I could not find anything to wear. I remember going on a website and I saw some nice shorts and I was like, ‘OK, I’m ordering up these shorts, I’m doing this’.

“I realised I just wasn’t happy, I was so depressed and I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Cheryl proudly wore the floral red and blue shorts while away with her family and ignored any looks she got from strangers.

She said: “When I put the shorts on and I walked out that hotel, I thought, ‘This is it, I’ve found myself. This is me and this is how I was born,’ and I love that. I felt so much more comfortable on the holiday and that did the world of good for my confidence and really changed how I think about myself.

“Since then, I’ve started wearing a knee-length bodycon dress that I’d never normally have worn before, and no longer wear the jet-black tights that I’d always wear to work so people couldn’t see my moles.”

Recently Cheryl took part in Love Disfigure’s protest outside a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store in London, which spotlighted scarred and plus-size bodies in a bid to raise awareness of the lack of diversity in the fashion industry and celebrate different types of beauty.

“I wanted to do it for myself but more for other people who are suffering from different skin conditions so that they can embrace their skin,” she said. “You don’t have to be a slim model or have a big bum or big boobs. You don’t need to look that type of way, just love yourself for what you look like.

“I was confident already but it was about standing with Love Disfigure. I was so grateful to be a part of it and I’m hoping to do more. There were some horrible comments but there were so many positive ones. For me, they outweighed the negative.”

After experiencing the happiest year of her life in 2018, Cheryl wants to keep inspiring others to feel comfortable in their skin, whether they are scarred, curvy, thin or anything in between.

When asked what advice she would give others struggling to embrace their flaws, she said: “Just say to yourself, this is you, just love you no matter what. There’s nothing in this world that could make me change my way of thinking and that’s because I’ve started loving myself.

“People are going to have opinions about you no matter what, it’s not going to stop negative comments, but you have to start loving yourself or you’ll never be happy.”