I WAS very excited to hear about Agoo Bengzon’s collaboration with homegrown nail-polish brand Solique, the gel nail-polish brand of Girlstuff. I’ve heard so many good things about Girlstuff and how their polishes are of good quality and free from harmful chemicals.
I first met Agoo almost 20 years ago. She was the beauty assistant of Preview then. She was with Pauline Juan at the time and I remember asking Agoo if she and Pauline were models-turned-magazine girls and she replied, “No, Pauline just looks like a model but she’s not. And I’m definitely not.”
Agoo is one of the sweetest ladies in the business and I don’t use the term “lady” nonchalantly here. She is a lady—from the way she looks to the way she conducts herself. In a lot of ways, Agoo and I are nothing alike (she is obviously better-looking). But in some ways, we are. We’re both Scholasticans. We’re wives and moms. We like skin care (she is a Pond’s Girl), makeup and Rachel McAdams (an inside joke).
Thanks to Instagram, Agoo and have somehow kept in touch with what’s happening in each other’s life even if we’re no longer very active in attending launches and events. We sometimes chat over over beauty concerns and, during the rare times that we bump into each other at events, about motherhood.
If you’re not following Agoo on Instagram (@agoo_b), you should. She posts about food, her husband Andy and her two boys, her dad Adolf Azcuna, lipstick and nail polish. Agoo likes to call me the “lipstick queen” but, really, she is the queen with the most beautiful hands and feet. She could be a hand and foot model, as I’ve told her so many times.
For her collaboration with Girlstuff, which is called SoliqueXAgoo, there are three colors. I expected her to do a red but she didn’t.
“I didn’t want a black because there’s a lot of that already. What else can you do with black? Everybody also has a red. What kind of new red could we come up with?” Agoo. said
Instead, SoliqueXAgoo has a universally flattering dark blue called Posse that every beauty editor went for during the collection’s launch at Nail Spa. Cloud is a mauve nude, while Smitten is a magenta that is Agoo’s favorite. “I like dark nail polish. I always wear that so I chose Posse. Cloud is a nude that’s different because it’s flattering even on darker skin tones and Smitten is also unique,” Agoo said of her choices. During the launch, guests got Posse and Cloud, plus a base coat and a top coat in a beautiful Chanel-inspired tweed pouch.
Girlstuff and Solique Nail Polish don’t contain formaldehyde, toluene, DBP, camphor and formaldehyde-resin, harmful chemicals that can be found in other nail polish. Solique has the benefits of a long-wearing, high-shine gel polish sans the UV lamp requirement (it cures in natural light). Solique is also easily removed with regular nail-polish remover.
The SoliqueXAgoo collection is available at Girlstuff kiosks and carts at SM Mall of Asia, SM North Edsa, SM Megamall, SM San Lazaro, Glorietta 2 and Alabang Town Center. They’re also available at www.girlstufforever.com and www.beautymnl.com. n