PHOTO: Instagram/anakarylle

Beauty is power, but for some parts of Karylle‘s life, beauty was pain for her. The singer-host opened up about her longtime insecurities in a podcast with one of her closest friends, Iza Calzado.

It’s not a secret to many that Karylle and Iza have been friends—actually, they are sisters as they say—since their Encantadia days. They were cast as the main leads of the iconic fantasy teleserye in 2005. Along their conversation, they look back on their good old days.

Karylle talks about growing up with curly hair

Now in their early 40s, they reminisce the most notable parts of their 20s. One of those was how they overcame their insecurities. For Karylle, her naturally curly hair affected her self-confidence as someone going through adulthood back then.

“It’s not always presentable,” she begins. Karylle explained how her hair’s look would most often depend on the humidity and the weather of the day. More than that, growing up, beauty standards appeared to have shunned the concept of curly hair in celebrities.

Hence, she was always told to straighten her hair whenever she was in public. “(During) my twenties, for example—I think beauty is pain could have applied because everyone told me to wear my hair straight. It was like, okay ibo-blow dry mo siya, tapos hihilahin mo siya, and ibang level ‘yung kulot ko depending on the day,” she recalled.

At present, Karylle acknowledges the notion that the entertainment industry is currently trying to be more inclusive of all kinds of beauty. However, she notes that her curly hair affected her youth. “You don’t realize it hurts pero parang it affected me siguro for a good how many years. Back then, I was really told not to wear my hair curly. So I never learned how to deal with it,” the singer-host remarked.

She added, “Buti na lang hindi siya namatay. Buti na lang when Encantadia came along, they were so into it.” Karylle was grateful for her iconic role in the teleserye as it did not require her to straighten her curls, but instead flaunt them during the entire run of the show.

Instagram/anakarylle

Iza Calzado on her perceived flaws

For the actress, Iza, calls it ~perceived flaws.~ Everything from her loose skin to her weight—all are perceived flaws for her. “For me, it’s always been my weight, my flaws, my perceived flaws like loose skin, stretch marks, weight, size. These are the things that I dealt with while you were dealing with your kulot,” Iza told Karylle.

The actress, although recognized as one of the most beautiful actresses in Philippine television, admits facing her insecurities when she was younger had a great impact on her lifestyle. Before becoming a healthier version of herself, Iza had subjected herself to fad diets.

“Back in Encantadia, you would eat pandesal. You had a pandesal diet. I think she invented it, and the other one was the suha diet,” Karylle recounted. In between Karylle’s remarks, Iza can’t help but laugh and comment, “It was awful.”

Explaining her suha diet, Iza said, “That one, from Monday to Saturday, I was on a body-builder’s diet. No salt. At the time I was a pescatarian, so I would just have tuna…kamote, suha. Pero ‘pag Sunday, ‘yung chocolate, ginagawa kong chips! Ano ‘yun?”

“Ang lala ‘nung cheat day. It was awful. For the longest time that was it. It was binge-starve-bing-starve,” Iza continued to explain.

The good thing was Iza finally got over her toxic eating habits, especially now that she is a mother. But looking back, she says things like those really affect you as a person. “It still affects you. It depends also on how buo you are as a human being,” the actress noted.

Instagram/missizacalzado

Karylle and Iza stressed how it’s important to have the right people around you. Karylle remembered one instance when she felt extremely confident because of Iza and another one of their friend, Sunshine Dizon‘s empowering words for her.

Although she couldn’t remember the exact words, the singer-host declared that the feeling still lingers with her up to this day. She narrated, “I was gonna do BENCH (BENCH Body Fashion Week), I was on a diet. You guys said something to me that made me feel so confident. At that point, I said, ang galing noh, that they can make me feel this good. Now, I don’t have to feel bad in any way.”

Iza then agreed with her friend and emphasized the impact of words on people. “You can make or break people with your words. We can really choose to build each other up or tear each other down,” Iza voiced out.