Frankie sings for her new kid sister Mariel

Curtain-raisers:

• Melanie Marquez announces the enrollment for her modelling seminars starting on Sept. 25, also a Saturday, with classes scheduled from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at her house at #70 East Maya Drive, Philam Homes, Quezon City. Melanie herself is the one teaching the students. For inquiries, call 815-4872 or 0917-4975576.

• At the rate some members of the Viva Hot Babes are fighting, the group might as well be called Viva Hot Heads. You’ve heard about Jen Rosendahl clashing first with Sheree and now with Christine Jaca, haven’t you? Before them, Katya Santos and Andrea del Rosario also had a verbal clash over personal hygiene.

• Hair Asia publisher Evelyn Alvaran-Cruz happily reports that her niece, Hazel Alvaran Tuazon, placed third in the recent medical board exams.

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The first thing Frankie did when her new kid sister, to be named Mariel Daniella Sophia, was brought into the hospital room was break into a song.

"Frankie was super-excited like we all were," brand-new Papa Sen. Kiko Pangilinan told Funfare. "Frankie couldn’t contain her excitement so she sang a song for Mariel."

Sharon Cuneta delivered by Caesarian section her and Kiko’s second child at 6:30 yesterday morning. As healthy as her mom, Mariel weighed 8.2 lbs. and measured 51 centimeters.

"Sharon and I both cried when we heard Mariel’s first cry at the delivery room," added Kiko.

For sure, Sharon’s room will be turned into a virtual flower shop but she and Kiko would prefer "no visitors allowed" (except immediate members of the family and close friends) while Sharon is recovering.

Even before she could recover from anesthesia, Sharon instructed Kiko to text the good news to Mariel’s would-be godparents, including Ruffa Gutierrez who herself will deliver her and husband Yilmaz Bektas’ second child, also a girl according to the ultrasound, on Sept. 15 (two weeks ahead of schedule), at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, California.

Like she did with KC and Frankie, Sharon will breastfeed Mariel "for as long as necessary."

And then she’ll have to shed excess poundage before she decides whether to return to television or, why not, do a movie.

Skin Whitening Elvie Pineda’s Way

Beauty is big business. Everybody wants to be beautiful. Those not born with it (beauty, that is) would stretch their budget – and epidermis as well – this way and that just to feel, if not really look, "beautiful." No wonder, the beauty business is thriving not only here but in any part of the world.

Beauty, as the poet says, is its own excuse for being.

Last Monday night on The Correspondents, Karen Davila did an interesting comprehensive feature on the beauty business in Bangkok, with no less than Elvie Pineda (mother of actresses Rachel and Lani Lobangco) as guide and resource person. In Bangkok where she has been staying for 23 years, long enough for her to learn the tricks and techniques of the trade, Elvie is known as Baby Face because, despite her years (oops! her age is a highly guarded secret, although you can do your own calculation) she looks like a baby with her brown skin turned white.

"I’m a walking advertisement of my own product," Elvie told Funfare yesterday at Mario’s Restaurant (Tomas Morato Avenue, Quezon City) during a chance encounter with Bulletin’s Cris Belen and me. "I’m referring to Elvie’s Whitening Cream."

On The Correspondents, Karen Davila tackled the sex-change surgery which is, according to Elvie, "very common" in Bangkok which has become some kind of a "sex-change" capital of the world, with people from all corners trooping there for that "radical" change.

Elvie confirmed what Karen discovered: Ninety-five percent of the clients/patients are boys who want to be girls, which is, according to Elvie, easier to do than the other way around. The whole process/procedure takes three to four years to complete, starting with the counselling, the "lifting" of the nose and/or the face, injection of hormones (female, in the case of boys wanting to be girls), breast implantation/augmentation and, at last, the final cut which involves the transformation of the "man part" into a "woman part."

Being Catholic, Elvie said she has refrained from doing any sex-change surgery although she has seen hundreds and hundreds of it at the Bangkok hospital where she used to work as the doctor’s assistant. Instead, Elvie concentrated on learning the techniques of plastic surgery (from the doctors) and mixing of beauty products. Voila, Elvie’s Whitening Cream was whipped up!

Fast-forward 20-plus years later: Elvie now owns and manages her own clinic housed in a three-storey building on E. Rodriguez Ave., Libis, Quezon City, with branches in SM Pampanga, SM Bacoor, SM Southmall and Greenhills. She also exports her beauty products to Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, with another one coming up soon in Bangladesh.

"My immediate plan is to go international," said Elvie.

Behind every beauty expert’s success is a man who has either abandoned her or maltreated her (one beauty expert admitted being a battered wife). Elvie’s story has been dramatized not so long ago on Charo Santos-Concio’s Maalaala Mo Kaya (with Lorna Tolentino, who is Dr. Vicki Belo’s image model, in the title role).

"I was as poor as a rat," confessed Elvie who now looks as rich as royalty. "I started from scratch after my husband and I separated. First, I worked as a dancer-choreographer in Hong Kong for 10 years before I moved to Bangkok. Like what the Thais do, I prayed for good luck and good fortune before the four-faced Buddha. Before long my wishes were granted."

Again separated from her second husband (an international journalist), Elvie is enjoying the fruits of her (hard) labor. But she hasn’t stopped aiming high.

Older daughter Lani (who paints for a hobby) has married well (the scion of Sta. Lucia Realty) and has three kids while Rachel is a single mom of five-year-old Leona and, although earning good money from singing in Guam, Japan and other Asian cities, largely depends on dear Mom who has very sweetly gifted her with a condo and a car, likewise sending Leona to school.

"I pamper my daughters," said Elvie who regained custody of them after 15 years of separation. "They are my real treasures."

(Note: For inquiries about Elvie’s beauty products, call 912-7315, 912-7317 or 912-7313; 681-8485; 723-5818; 802-1970; 771-0799; 951-6749; or 045-961-3909 Pampanga branch.)

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