WELSH women are faithful in love, financially independent and confident about their style.

And we are more likely than women elsewhere in the UK to earn more than our men. In a nutshell, we know what we want, we know how to get it, and we can pay for it. That's the finding of a survey commissioned by Icon Home Entertainment to celebrate the video release of hit comedy What Women Want.

Sophia Cahill, (pictured) whose reign as Miss Wales has just come to an end, seemed to be a typical Welsh woman.

Welsh girls are top of the class at staying faithful, and Sophia, who is moving into a new house in Chepstow with her partner, Simon Williams, this weekend, said: "What makes a relationship is trust - without that you haven't got anything."

A huge 93 per cent of Welsh women said they dressed for themselves rather than to grab a man's attention.

Sophia, 18, said: "If you have a long-term partner you tend to dress for yourself more because you have got the one you want."

The natural look is said to be in for Welsh girls, and Sophia said: "Everybody expects if you are a beauty queen you spend eight hours a day on your make-up and hair. Some do - but I don't."

She wasn't surprised that a third more respondents in Wales than in London had the number of a plastic surgeon, saying: "Since I have been in this business I have been shocked at how many people have had plastic surgery."

Women felt that work was as important - if not more important - as love.

Sophia said: "It puts pressure on a relationship if he is going out to work every day and has a social life and you don't, even if you are totally in love."

Twice as many women in Wales than in the South East or Scotland earn more than their partners - and Sophia has more earning power than Simon, who is in the army. "I don't earn more because I don't work every day, but in one day's work "I could earn four or five times what he does," she said.