Ayen reveals well-kept secret about her flawless skin
by Kaye Villagomez

TV personality, stage actress and producer Ayen Munji-Laurel has opted to pay strict attention to regular exercises and non-invasive skin treatments as she is openly anti-liposuction and other aesthetic enhancement procedures involving surgery.

"I'm very scared to go under the knife. I'd rather work out and be terribly disciplined now than have to suffer the consequence later in life when I could not prevent anymore skin aging," Franco Laurel's better half told the Manila Bulletin in a recent interview.

Ayen regularly goes to the gym for about three to four times a week. "For the kind of lifestyle that evolves on diet and discipline, I really went picky on which clinic to go to for a relaxing skin treatment."

One time Ayen was with friend and stylist Fanny Serrano, she noticed that Fanny has really good skin and that his pores were hardly visible. "I thought, I'd like to know what's being done to his skin and how it's done."

Ayen got her answer at the Zen Skin Institute where Dr. Mary Jane Valdecañas, owner and proprietor of Zen (a medical spa), had a sit-down talk with Ayen to figure out what exactly was it that she wanted. "Ayen was very concerned of a lot of things. She's not the type who would just go for a treatment just because she heard it's good or that she believed its advertisements. Ayen knew what she wanted. Actually, we felt like we were the one interrogated pa nga instead of being the interviewer of our client."

Luckily for Ayen, Zen has her standards covered. "Zen has that relaxing ambiance. Hindi very clinical yung place niya kaya you don't get that impression that you're going to have your skin treated. Mabango din kaya yung lugar pa lang, therapeutic na. It's an upgraded spa center."

Like the treatment Fanny regularly gets, Ayen also opted for Resonax, "a technology that we had brought from Europe which involves a machine that extracts your body's very own collagen and lets it resurface through your face kaya it's really the healthiest way to get your skin back into perfect form."

Ayen added, "Since the treatment is done in patches, hindi lagi yung buong mukha mo ang natatakpan. Wala rin siyang peeling at pamumula ng balat so you don't have to worry about not being able to go out for a period of time.

The celebrity lifestyle can be really taxing in more ways than one. While enough sleep has been known to be very beneficial to the skin, TV and movie personalities do not usually have the luxury of time to sleep long hours.

Ayen frequents Zen at the Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig at least once a week. "What's good about having Resonax in Ayen's case is that she was able to start having it for prevention," said the doctor who pioneered the skin and total wellness centers in a prominent fitness company. Zen is also a one-stop self-rejuvinating shop that has had many other celebrities frequenting it.

Ayen, who just made herself available for TV via joining GMA 7's group of artists, said that it's not about being against cosmetic surgery as a means to achieve aesthetic satisfaction, "But it's about knowing that there could be other means of achieving fitness and looking young and Zen has it all from body sculpting, fat burning and skin rejuvenating treatments."

A member of the International Society of Mesotherapy and the Italian Society of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Valdecañas rationalized further, "Surgery is an option but it's not the only option. If you are sick with something, you don't ask your doctor to operate on you right away you ask if it can be cured with other means. The advantage of non-surgical treatments is that you also incorporate a healthy lifestyle."

For Ayen, she "simply does not want to see myself at that point in time when I would have to resort to face lift and have myself expressionless just because I wanted to be a few years younger."