There’s always something to be a little insecure about. For fashion blogger and social media mega influencer Bryanboy, that would be his nose and set of teeth. These lifelong insecurities were amplified when he began blogging and people made fun of them online.
The mocking and teasing went on and on, but Bryanboy never took it personally.
“It’s a manifestation about how they feel about themselves. Do you think maganda ‘yung mga nagko-comment ng negative? I have never met a hater who is beautiful. Beautiful people are confident and happy, so it’s nothing personal,” he said.
He had his teeth fixed and, three years ago, finally overcame his fears of going under the knife and underwent rhinoplasty at the Belo Medical Group. Many of his friends in the fashion industry have had a nose job, he said. It’s a routine procedure.
“I see videos of me all the time. I just want to look my best. I work with some of the world’s biggest brands and get my photos and videos taken. I want to look good because I want to feel good. When you’re working with very good people, you owe it to them to look nice,” he said.
Like many first-timers, Bryanboy was scared at first.
Self-esteem
“When I had my nose job three years ago my biggest regret was, why didn’t I do this sooner? There is nothing wrong with seeing a doctor. If a body part is bothering you, that’s not healthy. You don’t want to spend your entire life hating that body part. It will affect your self-esteem.”
This time around, the 37-year-old thinks that gravity is slowly working against him. His eyes are starting to droop, his cheeks are no longer as perky. Overall, he feels his face is beginning to look bloated.
When his 2019 calendar—he travels all the time—showed a Hong Kong booking, he took the opportunity to come home and try for himself the new Belo Kinetic Facelift, a noninvasive procedure.
Dr. Vicki Belo, he said, has always designed his beauty program for him. So he pops in the country twice a year for his beauty maintenance. Since gravity is his enemy now, he was googling online for a nonsurgical treatment when he came across a video of the kinetic facelift on Belo’s Instagram account.
Revolutionary
This revolutionary antiaging treatment uses a technology called Enerjet that works by inserting a special firming and rejuvenating solution containing hyaluronic acid into the skin. It stimulates the effect of a surgical facelift without actually doing surgery. It tightens, lifts and rejuvenates the skin, improving the jawline contour, lifting the cheeks, jowls and brow area, and smoothens fine lines and wrinkles.
“It’s crazy what science can do these days. Now I can see my eyelid,” he said. “I didn’t feel anything, just a little moist on my face. It made everything tight. Before my face was so bloated. Now the swelling is gone. The result should last a year,” he said.
Even his sweaty palms were fixed by Enerjet. Bryanboy used to endure extremely painful Botox injections to the hands at least twice a year to treat this medical condition, called palmar hyperhidrosis.
“Botox is the cure, but it’s the most painful thing in the world—more painful than taking out your wisdom tooth,” he said. “But on Enerjet, I felt nothing.”
Since he was already in town, he also had chin and cheek fillers.
“I want to do more but Dr. Belo is very conservative. Good doctors know when to stop,” he said.
Ferragamo campaign
The fashion blogger just finished his biggest project to date, an ad campaign with Italian brand Salvatore Ferragamo. He wrote, directed, produced, edited, and searched for the shoot location. He has done projects for Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and more in the past, but nothing that allowed him complete artistic control over a project, until now.
“I’m very, very lucky and grateful. It’s all luck. it’s hard work, too, but anyone can work hard, you know, and not have an opportunity to work like this,” he said.
Always outspoken, Bryanboy talked about the controversial Dolce & Gabbana ad last year, the H&M monkey sweatshirt, and the Gucci blackface sweater pulled out from shops earlier this month.
“My biggest issue with a lot of brands, and I’m not just talking about Italian brands … When you are a fashion house and 99.9 percent of your workers are, for example, Italians—the creative team is Italian, the production team is Italian—you are in a box. You don’t know what the world perspectives are. You don’t know what cultures are out there,” he said.
He said these brands lack diversity in the workplace, that there’s no person of color in the executive position. He doesn’t think there was any intention to offend. “When you’re a multinational fashion brand, the intention is not to offend. It’s just their ignorance,” he said.
“With Stefano Gabbana—that’s another story,” he said of the cofounder of Dolce & Gabbana. “He really likes to offend people. He called Selena Gomez ugly and Miley Cyrus fat. I don’t understand what goes in the head of a man to say things like that. He’s running a 3-, 4-billion-euro business, but because he’s a privately owned company, he thinks he can say anything he wants. He has to filter,” he said.
Bryanboy is passionate about a lot of things, and follows political news around the world. He has accomplished a lot and has come a long way from his blogging days in the Philippines, and yet he still feels like he hasn’t done enough.
“I feel like I still have a lot to offer. I want to do something charitable. And maybe focus on writing my story in a couple of years. I want to have four children—two boys and two girls, one gay and another a lesbian,” he said.
Bryanboy lives in Sweden with his husband and their mini pinscher, Bettina.