"Thanks—that’s because I feel like s**t.”

The woman who uttered this was perfectly coiffed and made up, dressed in a designer-vintage ensemble that only the very fashionable and confident can pull off. The year was 1997, and Asian crisis had just hit. What she had said in response to my enthusiastic, “you look great today!,” wasn’t what you’d expect, but it pretty much sums up how health-and-beauty-conscious consumers behave in a recession: they like to continue looking good, despite—and perhaps especially because of—tough times.

“Forbes Magazine” reported in early 2009 that personal care products top the list of “what people are still buying.” In the second half of last year, HSBC Red MasterCard and Rustan’s Department Store audaciously teamed up to promote a “big beauty blowout.”

“Times are hard but women will do what they always do to stay beautiful,” said Ron Logan, HSBC’s SVP and head of Personal Financial Services, in a press statement. Logan noted that while credit spending for food and restaurants has been steady, there’s a growth of 3 percent for cosmetics. “It’s not 20 percent, but that’s still growth.

Maybe she won’t buy this table now, but for something to make her beautiful…”

According to Goldman Sachs analysts, the international beauty industry—which includes fragrances, skin and hair care, cosmetic surgery, makeup, diet pills and health clubs—is growing at almost 7 percent a year. Skin care brings in $24 billion; makeup, $18 billion; hair care, $38 billion and perfume, $15 billion worldwide.

Some people may cut back (and that’s where brand loyalty is compromised), but there are some regimens that will not be given up. Some will invest to keep looking good and feeling young, to trump any negative or unconstructive emotions during low times; some who choose to get more frugal will be better discerning in their choice of beauty/personal care products or procedures. In either case, the science of aesthetics—and its practitioners—remains relatively upbeat.

‘We did not feel a pinch’

“No,” MJ Torres-Valdecañas states,when asked if her practice was hit by the economic dip. A dermatological surgeon and head of the Zen Institute, the country’s first medical spa, her clinic caters to the middle and upper class. “This (aesthetic medicine) is not a basic necessity,” she admits, “so I think what influences my patients more in times of crisis, like the global crisis and Ondoy, is more psychological—even if they have the funds, they would say ‘nakakahiya naman to spend on beauty when there are other Filipinos who need clothing and shelter.’ But they do have the budget, and it’s either they come, or they don’t.”

The Zen Institute is known for its anti-aging, slimming, and contouring non-invasive treatments. All are packaged neatly into programs that take into account a person’s general health, lifestyle, body mass index, and body fat percentage. “From there we determine if the patient needs weight management side-by-side a body sculpting program.

It’s a well-rounded scientific approach,” she shares. Sometimes the patient may need injections (that’s as “invasive” as things get in Zen), and the use of machines, like an UltraLipo (which uses soundwaves to break down fat) or Resonax, is employed.

Obviously, these packages don’t come cheap. A non-surgical facelift can cost anywhere from P5,000 to P20,000 a visit; a body sculpting program can cost anything from P5,000 to P15,000. “When they come,” Valdecañas continues, “they get the program. You’d think they’d come for only facials because they’re cheaper? No,” the diminutive doctor says with a laugh. “No, this is not the case.”

Beverly Hills 6750 Multi-Specialty Aesthetic Institute, whose business side is overseen by General Manager Suzette Hahn-Lopez, has not been adversely affected either. “It seems that the more the economy is down,” Hahn-Lopez muses, “the more people want to come in and beautify themselves.

Maybe it’s the inner beauty they feel they have to work on,” she concludes. Known as a world-class beauty hub (with prices actually 20 to 30 percent lower than direct competitors) right smack in the middle of Makati, Beverly Hills 6750 offers aesthetic plastic/cosmetic surgery, skin care and rejuvenation, cosmetic dentistry, weight loss management and surgery, and endovenous laser varicose treatment. It is the pioneer in cosmetic gynecology (or “flower arrangement”); its medical director, Dr. Bernabe Marinduque is the only doctor in the country who does vaginal laser surgery. Its doctors are chief plastic surgeons of leading hospitals.

At any given time of day, there are patients of every age and gender in the lobby. The overall mood of the clinic is robust. Hahn recalls a time when it wasn’t so. “There was a time, around 2008, that we went through this ‘scandal’ involving the past president,” she wavers. Not wanting to bring up the past, she says that that incident brought more trouble than the economic crisis. “That resulted in people not knowing if the business was still here or if it was pushing through, so there was a decline. That took us four to five months of uncertainty. But now we’re back on track; we’ve taken 10 steps forward.”

And though there was a decline in the balikbayan market — the vacationing Filipinos who usually visit around December or January — the locals have not tapered off. “We did not feel a pinch.”

The evolution of the market has also contributed to the health of the industry. Valdecañas says that thanks to her branch offshoots — the original clinic is located at Global City, The Fort with branches in Tomas Morato, Quezon City, The Podium in Pasig, and soon, satellite clinics in Hotel Sofitel in Manila and Nurture Spa — her reach has widened. Men and women are split, 50-50. Young men barely out of their teens are known to come in for facials.

Beverly Hills 6750 also says more and more men are coming for treatments. “There was a point that we had three men to two women,” says Hahn-Lopez. “But that’s because we have everything here. We can treat patients from eight years old to 80 years old, for skin diseases to hair removal…”

Another Avenue for Growth

One aspect of the local beauty business that’s kept it alive and a potential economic driver, not just for the Philippines but for the region, is medical tourism. Vicki Belo, voluble and controversial “beauty doctor to the stars,” who heads Belo Medical Group, is a self-proclaimed “beauty ambassador.”
“I just decided I’d be my own tourism secretary,” she says. “This is the reason I have my own TV show called ‘Belo Beauty 101’, shown all over the world on TFC.” On it, Belo invites Pinoys all over to bring one foreign friend each to the Philippines.”

Things have changed for Belo, who used to rely on Japayukis for business. Around 2002, 70 percent of Belo’s clients came from abroad. Now that Filipino entertainers in Japan have been outlawed, and the Philippines has been getting bad rap after bad rap, what with the political unrest in the South, Belo’s market is now “60 percent Filipinos, and 30 percent from abroad.” The foreigners have diversified, though. They’re Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners.

Balikbayans “used to come and want to do everything. But now, they just want facials, scrubs…the foreigners used to have everything done—eyes, breasts, lipo, Thermage, all in one go, one time big time. But now that’s spread out over a few months.”

Beverly Hills counts Australians and Guam nationals as a new market, especially for its dentistry procedures. It offers specialized dentistry services such as teeth whitening (“after one hour, your teeth are three shades lighter,” says Hahn-Lopez), and gum de-pigmentation.

Zen Institute, meanwhile, entices visitors to experience medical tourism in every sense of the word: “A medical spa is the best (place to go to),” says Valdecañas. “You don’t undergo the knife, and so you can go around and see the beaches, spend time at a resort. You can’t do that with sutures. You have to be ambulatory to enjoy a vacation.”

The Future of “Beauty”

Though marketing undoubtedly plays a role in the popularity of these clinics—Belo Medical utilizes the hottest star of the moment, Beverly Hills has used beauty queen Dayanara Torres to drive home its point that it’s a world-class clinic, and Zen Institute uses “real” people (“all of the endorsers you see in our print ads and brochures are not paid endorsers. They’re actual users and clients of Zen,” says Valdecañas)—their future, and indeed, the future of the beauty industry rests on the promise of perfection.

“I’ve always wanted to cross that bridge and think out of the box,” says Hahn-Lopez, when asked what she thinks the “next big thing in beauty” is. “There are a lot of new techniques and new machines. In terms of weight loss, there are L-carnitine injections already, but we’d like to confirm if they’re safe. There are new fillers for breast and buttocks augmentation, but before we start them, we’ll check if they’re safe, even if they’re already FDA-approved.”

Belo, constantly on the move for research and development, enumerates many fascinating prospects:
“Anti-aging. Many people look young nowadays but don’t feel young, so you have to start from the inside. The peak of our bodies is when we’re 25 years old. That’s when our hormones are perfect; your body is like an orchestra. If all the hormones work together, the music played is so beautiful. So anti-aging medicine in terms of keeping your hormones, weight, everything, at 25 years old, is a new science. But it’s still not a perfect science, and it’s expensive.

“Electricity. Cells communicate through electrical impulses, so we’ll be learning to harness that; to make cells behave to make our bodies younger from inside.

“Light Emitting Devices, or LEDs, and not just lasers. A laser is just one beam of light. An LED lights up the whole body, and it can be used to make skin get better every time you’re exposed to it.”
She rattles off more—growth hormones, stem cells and a concoction of your own blood (“processed to get the plasma and platelets) as fillers. “I want to see how far science can go,” Belo says.

Things are much simpler with Valdecañas and Zen Institute. For Valdecañas, perfection and the future of beauty is “wellness and health. Beauty is the icing on the cake, but it can also be the cake. You want to be beautiful? Don’t look for a quick fix. You need to have a healthy lifestyle, as well. Total wellness. That’s being confident and loving yourself.”