Not your usual beauty contest

MANILA, Philippines - This is a beauty contest of sorts, although beauty is not the real requirement. At least not the kind that fuels an entire industry in Venezuela. It can be a popularity contest, but what is the popularity based on? Being flawless, perhaps. Which is a bit confusing, considering “flawless” here isn’t how dictionary.com defines it: an adjective that refers to the absence of a feature that mars the perfection of something. In other words, perfect — and that makes things all the more complicated. Because perfection is the last thing they’re looking for.

What they want is something that has more to do with character rather than characteristics, a heartfelt smile rather than a perfect set of teeth, being comfortable in your own skin rather than taking comfort in cosmetics.

Flawless, in this case, is you stripped bare of frivolity and gloss but still radiantly whole. You beyond the pixel projection. It’s tough, especially since winners are voted on by their peers and the general public, based on photos seen on a website. I mean, how much can a picture say anyway?

A lot, if you ask Flawless, the chain of mostly mall-based aesthetic centers, which, after putting the likes of Lorna Tolentino, Judy Ann Santos and Richard Gutierrez on their billboards, is now searching for two new endorsers among their customers. This new campaign, called Picture Flawless, is a way of reaching out to their clientele, but it’s probably also a way to equalize this whole standard of beauty.

Flawless started the search a few months ago and is still accepting applications in the next two weeks. There is only one real requirement: you have to be a customer of the aesthetic center. Aside from that it’s a free-for-all. You don’t have to be a certain age, race or sexual orientation. They’ll take you married or single. They’ll take you even if you’re just partly Filipino.

So you can just imagine the interesting mix of billboard hopefuls that have given in their application. There’s Keina Fawaz, half-Lebanese and half-Filipino, who’s banking on her confidence, and maybe her exotic looks, to get far enough in the competition; half-Iranian Sam Langroudi, who is trying to champion the environment. (“I would prefer to walk even if it’s three kilometers away!”) There’s budding photographer Paul Reyes and culinary school hopeful Rafael Nanquil, one joining for the heck of it, the other to perhaps further a modeling career. Then you have the 12-year-old, Arianne Nuñez from Pampanga, who is hoping to use the prize money (a whopping P800,000, by the way) to help her parents financially. On the other end of the age spectrum is Jenny Regaspi, a 32-year-old single mom who claims that her flawlessness comes from her ability to carry her age well.

Each one of them had to go through the usual process: a purchase worth at least P800 at any of Flawless’s SM branches, a photo session in a Flawless booth, and then the constant jitters until the semi-finalists, and eventually the finalists and winners, will be announced in February. (Winners will be chosen based on votes through the website, www.flawless.ph and in-store ballots, and partly by a panel of judges.)

It’s a pretty extensive search considering Flawless reaches as far out as Iloilo and Cebu. So far, 25 web pages have been filled up with endorser aspirants. You can only imagine what’d happen if they snuck in a talent portion.

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For more information on how to join Picture Flawless or how to vote for a contestant, log on to www.flawless.ph or call 1-800-10-FLAWLES. Applications will be accepted until Dec 30.