Beauty Secrets Of Deepika Padukone

For this luminous star, nothing is more important than looking natural and feeling comfortable and fit. In a candid interview, she shares her simple but powerful beauty secrets.

- Sandipan Dalal

She may have won the Filmfare Best Actor in a Leading Role award for her role in Shoojit Sircar’s Piku and recently started taping her first Hollywood film, XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, but Deepika Padukone never imagined being on Femina’s India’s Most Beautiful list quite so many times. “It put a smile on my face,” she says. Born to badminton legend Prakash Padukone and wife Ujjala, Deepika led the disciplined life of an athlete and Bharatanatyam dancer and excelled in baseball, badminton and basketball while growing up in Bangalore. While her fashion choices range from sporty to red-carpet elegance, Deepika prefers to keep her hair and makeup simple and non-fussy. The closest she came to experimenting with her hair was wearing braids on a family vacation to the Bahamas as a teenager. Now, she says she looks her best when she is comfortable and confident in her outfit. She also feels that “happiness is key to looking beautiful”. Ranveer Singh, she admits, is the one who compliments her the most. “He doesn’t hold back at all.” Not that we think anyone would.

What was your first reaction when you heard that you were on Femina’s annual India’s Most Beautiful list?

It put a smile on my face. Obviously, being declared the ‘most beautiful’ is not something one can take seriously but it’s fun.

Growing up, what did you equate beauty with—porcelain skin or long and flowy hair, maybe?

When I was in school, beauty was restricted to only physical attributes. Looking a certain way was regarded as beautiful. We’ve evolved over the years and today we realise there is so much more to beauty.

Who was your beauty icon?