Not many know how rigorous training is for Miss Universe. When it comes to beauty, how did you prepare yourself for the big stage?SKINCARE“I really had to get my skincare in order in advance so that I would know I’d have good skin. [That was] one of the biggest things because it's the canvas of your makeup—the better your skin is, the less effort you need to put into your base. It really helped once I found out where the [competition] was. It was in Thailand, the same climate as ours, so I knew that whatever worked for my skin here would work there. I went to a dermatologist regularly just to make sure that my skin was in check, tried to eat well, and drink enough water 'cause it comes through there, too. Oh and I put extra effort into makeup removers, like just to get everything off. I think my makeup removing routine is three steps long! When I leave it on, like if I miss [one spot], I break out.
MAKEUP“The biggest thing that I had to learn was doing my face from scratch. From the everyday looks, to the special event looks like national costume, preliminary, and of course finals—I did the makeup for everything. My team really gave me one-on-one training for that. I invested in good makeup brushes, too. I got myself brush cleaners, and made sure that my kit was minimal but solid so that I could do all the looks that I needed to with minimum products.”
HAIR“With my hair, I had to treat it a lot. I would go to the salon to get treatments. I'd get trims all the time and tried to use extensions as much as I could, because by the end of the pageant, my hair was fried. Also, I had to learn from Brent how to do second day hair. For example, I’d have curls one day, and then the second day he taught me how to do a cute ponytail or a bun just to save my hair that day from irons and the heat. Just practical stuff to save time and to save my hair!”
What did you find the most difficult to learn during beauty training?“Hair. It's exhausting—like your arms hurt, and then once I put in all my extensions, it makes it three times more [painful] especially with curls. My goal for training was also to get my time down to a minimum, so that I could save on sleep and stress and be able to put on my makeup [and hair] for my daily events in 30 minutes. That's why I would practice by myself at home because I wanted to be as fast as possible.”
Can you tell us how you did your winning look?“I actually took my time in doing my makeup that morning. We were up by 12:30 a.m. [to start] hair and makeup, either doing our own or going down to the hair and makeup teams at around 3 a.m.
“My hair, actually, I feel like I didn't do a very good job. I mean I did an okay job but like it could've been better. I sent a video to Brent and he was sending me a video back telling me how to fix it. We had a group chat, and I would just constantly correspond with [my team], showing my makeup and they would send me feedback. It took around two hours to do my hair and makeup.
“But the switching [of looks], since I start with center parted hair and then go side-swept for evening gown, that was really stressful. The changes are so fast in the Top 10. Literally we didn’t even have a mirror. It was like someone did it, they hair sprayed it for me—I couldn't see it. I had to do my lipstick with a cellphone light and a small mirror. It's crazy. And those are things you don't know in advance, so it's always good to do beauty training because then when you’re put in that situation you're not going to [be] super stressed. At least you'll be like, "Okay, I know what to do."
What were your favorite things that you learned from your team during training?“When it came to hair, it's really about the framing and the parting. I never knew that played that big of a part in the hairstyle itself but it really does. [Framing] makes the hair sit around your face in a beautiful way. Also, I always had this perception that you needed mousses, dry shampoos, gels, hairsprays and everything, but honestly, I only had one product [during the pageant], and that was hairspray.
“For makeup, Jelly gave me this foundation that had a yellow tint. He would tell me that since the light they use [on stage] is white, it might wash out my tan skin tone, so putting on a yellow-based foundation would make [my skin] look healthier. Another tip that Jelly taught me, that I pinch myself that I didn't know it before, was using Duo eyelash glue to hold up my brows. I’ve never found a brow gel that's worked for me because my eyebrow hairs are quite long, and they always end up drooping. So when I found out about that tip, I've never been the same. Also, adding another color at the center of your lips, I also did this in the Vogue video, can change the look to make it a little fresher.”
Speaking of Vogue, can you tell us about your Beauty Secrets video? How did that happen?“I died, guys. Jelly knows this. I got an e-mail on my personal account from a Vogue writer from the US, saying that they wanted to interview me for their online platforms. We had a meeting and it was mostly about Miss Universe and a little bit about beauty and stuff, but there was another person present who happened to be like the head of digital and she just mentioned, 'Oh, we'd love to get you for some stuff if you're interested, like you know the Vogue Beauty Secrets—' I was like, 'Yes! I'd be up for everything! I would do everything!’
“When we left the meeting, I kept talking to the media manager of Miss Universe and I was like, 'Can we please make the Vogue beauty video happen 'cause that will be amazing. I will freak out. The Philippines will freak out.' And then yeah, it came through! I was so excited. I was messaging Jelly like, 'Oh my god they want me to do the coronation look!' It was so much fun, and did you know they only filmed it with an iPhone? It's just [shot in] a hotel bathroom. That's it! It's super minimal. It's not even a full setup. The lighting is just from the hotel lighting. I talked a lot in that video. [Shooting] took like an hour.”