Kate Winslet has always been vocal on her dislike for the way photo-manipulation presents an unrealistic standard of beauty. Now the star has made sure her contract with cosmetics giant Lancôme includes a ban on her images being retouched.

Winslet, who has worked with Lancôme and its parent company L'Oréal since 2007, told E! News that she has insisted her appearance is not edited in any of the advertisements because she feels a “responsibility” to younger women.

“It's a hope that other people [in the public eye] might follow suit,” the star said at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. “But it does feel important to me because I do think we have a responsibility to the younger generation of women.

“I think they do look to magazines, I think they do look to women who have been successful in their chosen careers and they want people to look up to, and I would always want to be telling the truth about who I am to that generation because they've got to have strong leaders. We're all responsible for raising strong young women, so these are things that are important to me.”

Mum-of-three Winslet, 40, has spoken often about issues of confidence and body image, and described earlier this month how she'd started to view her body's role differently in recent years.

“Thank God all that s***’s evaporated. We all focus on our bodies in our late teens and our early 20s, in a way that is just not cool or healthy. In your 30s, you become aware of staying fit. Now I view my physical self as an instrument that I have to keep going because I’m a mother, and I have to be as healthy as I can for those three people who need me – more than I need for myself to be in a f***ing nude scene.”

In 2003, she famously called out a magazine for slimming down her legs “by about a third” on a cover shoot, saying: “I do not look like that and more importantly I don’t desire to look like that.”

Images: Rex Features