Fast Forward
There was a time when the beauty industry seemed invincible. In cosmetics, new brands were popping up daily, serving even the most niche beauty needs; celebrities were coming into the game and winning us over, thanks to progressive and inclusive approaches; social media kept feeding our desire to consume, not just beautiful things, but to see beautiful things being made, reviewed, and fawned over; skincare and aesthetic innovations were moving at warp speed, to a point where the question was no longer if you had any work done, but why haven’t you yet. Like any growing industry, beauty had its shortcomings and issues, but as a whole it seemed like the industry was going from strength to strength. It was no mystery why—everything just looked better with a dusting of highlighter.
Then the pandemic happened. In the Philippines, the change started slow, then accelerated to an alarming pace. We all know what happened after—jobs were lost, businesses were shuttered and even the biggest brands were brought to their knees.
But despite it all, silver linings showed up. Stuck at home, people started to buy online, igniting the long awaited for e-commerce boom. Skincare became a bigger priority, as were things that catered to health and wellness. We’re still a long way from bouncing backwe’re not even sure if we’re headed in right direction or if we’ve seen the worst of things already; but the year has given the best and the brightest much to think about, learn from and get creative on.
MEGA has gathered top executives, opinion leaders and creatives and asked them to get real about the essentials, share the insights they made and the changes they’ve set in place. We dared them to reassess the reasons why we do what we do, whether we should continue to do it and whether anyone is wearing red lipstick beneath their mask.
You can bet that we are.
Dr. Vicki Belo
FOUNDER, CEO, AND MEDICAL DIRECTOR, BELO MEDICAL GROUP
“People over profit” was the simple answer that Dr. Belo gave when asked about the biggest business learning she got from the pandemic. This guided the company’s key decisions during the quarantine: the clinics were shut down early, employees were given their full salary plus 13th month pay, and Dr. Belo took part in a global consensus paper that produced the guidelines for the safe reopening of aesthetic clinics. The latter resulted in BMG being cited as the gold standard for successful clinic reopening and patient safety. “There’s never been anything like this before, so in order to survive, we need to adapt and we need to do it well,” says Dr. Belo. On top of
