What’s your guilty pleasure?

As we grow older, many of us find ourselves developing more refined tastes. What we once considered as the height of fashion or the “Best. Movie. Ever.” turns out to be tacky or tasteless. Fortunately, some of us get to travel, meet new people and see new things. These experiences broaden our minds and, hopefully, allow us to be more open-minded.

Sometimes, however, we long for and give in to familiar flavors and experiences that might seem immature or selfish to others. These are called guilty pleasures, a term the dictionary describes as “something pleasurable that induces a usually minor feeling of guilt.” Whether it’s watching the home TV shopping channel late at night, while eating chips, hoarding discount vouchers online or singing out loud in the shower to Madonna or Duran Duran classics, these guilty pleasures are worth indulging in from time to time. Even Kapuso stars think so.

Benjamin Alves says he loves watching movies alone, a favorite pastime that started when he used to work at the theaters. “I would skip school on Fridays just to catch the latest releases.” Not content on watching one or two movies, Benjamin would spend the entire day in the movie house from the first screening to the last full show. “That’s 10 a.m. until 2 a.m. Sometimes, I even repeat movies. I guess doing that now brings me back to this place,” he says.

Mikael Daez indulges the child in him with animé. “I still enjoy a lot of my childhood hobbies; I’m watching Attack on Titan and Dragon Ball Super,” he says.

Meanwhile, Sam Pinto can’t get enough of pouches. “I am obsessed with pouches; I have them in all shapes, colors and sizes. I just want them even though I don’t know what to put in them. I have a whole box full of empty pouches just waiting to be used for something,” she laughs.

Who among you remembers getting their ears cleaned by their moms? As a child, I remember after taking a bath, I would lie on my mom’s lap, switching sides after each ear was cleaned. Some experts say this cleaning is actually unnecessary, because our ears have a self-cleaning ability. Tell that to Gabby Eigenmann who — aside from having a penchant for filled wafer sticks — counts ear cleaning as his favorite guilty pleasure. “I have my ears cleaned every two weeks. Ang sarap, eh.”

Lauren Young keeps herself happy by staying pretty, “Sometimes, I’ll get a blowout just to have a good hair day!”

Rafael Rosell might look like someone who watches what he eats but he claims he regularly gives in to the midnight munchies. “Every night, usually past midnight, I have a tendency to give in to crazy food cravings, and I overindulge in whatever my mind can think of creating with the ingredients I have at the moment. It’s usually a cycle of alternately wanting something salty followed by something sweet, which spirals into a vortex of food tripping to a whole ‘nother level. When the morning comes, I usually look at my kitchen and ask myself how I managed to eat so much,” he shares.

Instead of feeling bad about his overindulgence, he grinds up some herbs, makes some tea and smiles because he’s capable of “losing (himself) in such midnight adventures.”

“This habit started around a year ago when I went full vegan. I found out about all the amazing dishes one can make if we just add the word ‘vegan’ to the recipes we search for online,” he says.

Since he indulges but makes it a point to use only vegetables or plant-based ingredients, Rafael hardly feels any guilt. “I no longer see it as a guilty pleasure. More like healthy ‘midnight-food-trip-every-other-night’ pleasures.”

Another GMA star who surfs the web to indulge in his guilty pleasure is Tom Rodriguez who searches for puzzles online.

“It happened by accident one day while I was browsing the web. I came across a cryptic string of characters without any explanation. I found out that it was an encrypted message and the thrill of being in an impromptu scavenger hunt triggered something inside me.”

“I found so much beauty in the puzzle that was both simple and intricate. Solving it needed multiple skill sets in order to crack the next stage of the code, such as an understanding of cryptography, mathematics, physics, history and literature, among other things. Solving puzzles can be a fun way of exercising your mind,” this brainy hunk says.

Rafael and Tom’s online pursuits really shouldn’t induce “a minor feeling of guilt.” Whether it’s cosmetic pouches, ear cleaning, healthy snacks or regular visits to blowout bars, guilty pleasures make life all the more delightful.