Passing faces through various phases

Today is the first day of the last quarter of 2011. Then we will say goodbye to this year and usher in the next.

How time flies! And through the years we see the passing of faces.

One person who continues to see the procession of beautiful faces that come and go is Susan Aquino: She actually see these faces up close because most of these pass through her creative hands.

Now a relatively young grandmother of two, Susan is the senior stylist of the Symmetria Salon of Celeste Tuviera. She began her career in the styling business in 1980 when she was in her late teens. This was in Shisheido, a cosmetic brand that had a salon located at the basement of the old Hyatt. She later moved to a similar establishment owned by Mylene Dayrit, who is behind the hugely successful chain of Gold’s Gym in the Philippines. 

Already established in her position  looked up to even by the likes of KC Concepcion who is like a daughter to her (“the girl is wonderful,” volunteers Susan)   she went through various phases in the beauty profession. The most colorful, undeniably, was the time she handled the Hyatt models.

Former Hyatt house mannequins Bessie Badilla, Menchu Menchaca, Beth de Mesa, Jumbo Montelibano, Derek Carmona, Minnie Cagatao, Julie Ann Fortich and Melanie Marquez, among several others  Susan handled them all.

Those were the days of the luncheon fashion shows. Hyatt had a tie-up with Shisheido. Models were sent to the basement location of the salon at the hotel from 11 a.m. to 12 noon for styling  in time for the 1 p.m. show.

What funny anecdotes this period witnessed. There was a time, for instance, some three decades or so ago when the Dial soap brand had batches of models to push the product. They were collectively known as the Golden Girls  blonde and blue-eyed Aussies with pretty faces and the most curvaceous of figures.

In one show, the Golden Girls had a fashion show with the resident Hyatt models. After a tiring rehearsal, the gorgeous blondes asked around where they could have a massage. The Hyatt people quickly pointed to the spa across the hall. It was only a few steps away. This massage clinic  the Hyatt staff stressed  had the best blind masseurs.

When the Australian beauties got to the massage area, they all quickly tossed out every article of clothing they had  assured of the fact that even the deepest crevices of their bodies couldn’t be sighted by anyone. Their masseurs, after all, were not fortunate to have been given the gift of vision. And so they faced down  and up and spread their legs for stretching.

After an hour, the Aussies returned to the salon looking relaxed and de-stressed. “Those blind masseurs were truly the best,” they chimed.

When the Hyatt people took a peek outside, they saw the team of blind masseurs taking their break in a far end of the hall  they had been there for the past hour, while the blondes were having a massage inside the clinic!

Meanwhile, the male therapists  all with perfect vision  who handled the blonde women in their full state of undress were all left in a state of shock. It took them a while to recover and realize what hit them.

Another time, the models and some of the staff decided to party. That was the ‘70s and though it was martial law, the wilder among the youngsters still found ways to have fun  with marijuana.

The trick then was to mix the leaves into a special kind of brownie recipe and passed these loaded confections around as regular brownies.

Those brownies were actually being served  you only took so much so of it so you didn’t get stoned  when a military figure decided to crash in at the party. The pretty girls were there after all.

When the military man saw the brownies, he tried out a piece  then another and yet another. Before the party could even end, this important person from the military, he of the imposing posture, couldn’t even walk straight anymore and had to be assisted to his vehicle.

The very next day, some of the models were picked up for questioning by the military  actually those who posed with him during a picture-taking session at one point of the party.

Susan Aquino was not in that gathering. She had always been too prim and proper for that kind of unconventional activity.

But that incident was just one of the colorful phases involving some of the beautiful passing faces of the past.