The Pursuit of Beauty

Dr. Vicki Belo is the woman behind some of the most beautiful faces in the country and all she wants is to democratize beauty

- ALYSSA LAPID

In the Philippines, the name Vicki Belo has been synonymous with not just beauty, but its pursuit. Decades of gargantuan billboards along EDSA and countless celebrities ending live appearances with “Thank you, Dr. Vicki Belo” (a practice pioneered by Asia’s Songbird Regine Velasquez) cemented her status as the top of-mind dermatologist in the country. One of Belo’s most memorable advert lines, “Only Belo touches my skin,” is one that remains aspirational more than a decade after its launch.

It may have been Belo’s lawyer father who urged her to pursue medicine (a professional regret of his), but her reasons for specializing in dermatology were fueled by something even more personal. “When I was in my teenage years, I developed a lot of acne and had really bad skin,” Belo tells me via email. So she spent her tween years and all throughout medical school in and out of clinics to no avail. “I spent years and years going to many different dermatologists to find a cure to my acne. I saw no improvement, and it just left me feeling insecure having oily skin, pimples, and acne scars,” she recounts, adding, “So I decided that I would cure myself.”

Belo’s practice eclipsed just “curing” ailments however. After studying abroad, Belo discovered other countries’ advancements in laser and decided to offer the same procedures and technologies back home. Despite the Philippines not being open to surgery then, she built an empire on one procedure in particular—liposuction. Now, Belo Medical Group, her beauty conglomerate, provides anything from cosmetic surgery (lipo included) to bottled sunscreen distributed in local supermarkets.