Julia Barretto’s latest beauty secret
Julia Barretto hails from a family of women known as much for their acting mettle as for their beauty, one whose hallmark is flawless porcelain skin. The 19-year-old’s career has been picking up with roles veering away from the standard issue perky other half of a love team (in her last soap And I Love You So, she played the antagonist), but she would be the first to admit that as an actress, she is still learning as much as she can along the way. But for the beauty part, she has it down pat, and it isn’t just genetics.
In The Second Wife, her upcoming drama series soon to premiere on ABS-CBN’s primetime evening slot with Bea Alonzo and Ian Veneracion, Barretto plays a ballerina, and she now has the svelte figure to go with it. “I’ve been going to the gym regularly. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been kinder to my body just by eating stuff that is good to it. Of course, I want to look good when I start wearing ballerina clothes! But this is not just for the project. I also feel better about myself,” she says to the media at the Pond’s Acne Clear launch at Mega Fashion Hall.
At home, between the Barretto girls, there are no beauty secrets. Barretto first got her hands on Pond’s Acne Clear, the latest zit-clearing facial foam and leave-on gel duo from the brand when she did its TV commercial shoot in Bangkok, Thailand. She has since shared it with her teenage sister Claudia, who is also breaking into modeling, a time when adolescent breakouts just won’t do.
Their friend and fellow actress Alexa Ilacad also tried it and recorded her three-day progress on video, demonstrating how easy it is to stick to the regimen with just two easy steps. She just washes the day off — full TV makeup and all — with the foam cleanser and then pats on the leave-on gel (which also lessens oiliness throughout the day, according to Ilacad) before she sleeps. In the event of a breakout, for three days, “you have to do it twice a day religiously,” Ilacad says, and the girls all agree. The secret is in the breakthrough ingredients found in it, a combination of thymol and terpineol, not your usual anti-bacterial agents which join forces in Pond’s Thymo-T essence. It locks in on the pimple-causing bacteria and clears it from the root, so there’s none of that harsh dryness usually associated with acne skincare.
Barretto currently juggles taping a soap and filming a romantic comedy movie, Vince and Kath and James. She claims using Pond’s Acne Clear has made her regimen faster because aside from zapping red bumpy zits, it also keeps whiteheads and blackheads at bay. Enumerating her essentials is now such a breeze. “I just use a moisturizer, a tinted lip balm, and eyelash curler. That’s it.”
Pond’s girls: Julia Barretto (center) with Pond’s latest brand ambassadors, her sister Claudia (right) and fellow actress and friend Alexa Ilacad
