The leggy lass and heartthrob of Bollywood Deepika Padukone with her glamorous looks and a body to die for, has not attained her beauty overnight. It took her years of discipline, dedication and strong determination to make the shiny glowing skin and graceful figure her own. In her childhood, she used to wake up at five, go to her physical training and badminton. She made her runaway debut in Lakme Fashion Week and later she won the “Model of the Year” award at the Kingfisher fashion awards.
She became more popular with her kingfisher calender print campaign. Deepika had mesmerized the audience with her blockbuster film Om Shanti Om. Since then, she have been gaining more and more fans and have become a beauty goddess for many women. Now some of the popular fashion media such as Vogue got Deepika Padukone’s beauty and fitness secrets revealed.
Secrets of Beautiful Skin and Hair:
Rightly named as “India’s most beautiful woman” in People magazine, 2012, she possessed her flawless glowing skin with basic beauty care regime and a healthy life style, which worked wonders for her and might also do the same for you. Deepika looks shining even off screen. Let’s see why:-
1) Hydration: Deepika believes in drinking gallons of water. Since she hailed from an athletic family, she always knew the importance of drinking more water and she have made this a part of her life. It helped her to keep her skin supple and flawless.
2) Being Spiritual: She inherited certain beauty tips from her mom. She believes in being spiritual. She learnt the importance of eating plenty of vegetables, sleeping enough and work outs from her mother. But the most important thing she was taught from younger age was to keep feeling and thinking positive.
“I believe that makes a huge difference — keeping away negativity from your life. It’s a bit spiritual but it’s true!” she said to Vogue.
3) Spa freak: Deepika is best known to hit the spas frequently. She says, “Almost every week, I take a relaxing body massage with lukewarm coconut oil or baby oil. It relaxes and rejuvenates me like nothing else.” She regularly does steam baths and body massages. This is the secret of her porcelain skin.
4) Lustrous hair: “Coconut oil massages have always worked for my hair. It’s been my mantra for taking care of my hair since childhood. True dadi ma ka nuskha.” she says. Whenever she got a day off, she gets her hair and scalp massaged with coconut oil. She has been using this tip since her childhood and she says that its the secret for her lustrous tresses. Apart from that, she says that eating fresh fruits and vegetables and exercises are also important to preserve the beautiful hair for ages.
3) Deepika’s make-up tips:
She says that make up is only to enhance the beautiful appearance but it do not change the look completely. Being more natural is what she prefers and she is not afraid of facing cameras without make-up. She says that cosmetic products are equally important and makeup is an art which should be carefully chosen and done. “If your skin is naturally flawless, avoid foundations completely,” she says. She believes that one does not have to put more things together and use tons of makeup to look beautiful. It makes you look awful instead.
Cleansing toning and moisturizing:
“Healthy skin needs mild cleansing, for which I use gentle soaps. I use products that are mild. Rather than regular facials, I indulge in clean-up sessions once in a while. As a ritual, I enjoy a body massage with lukewarm coconut or baby oil twice a week, if my schedule permits” , Deepika says, ”
“During the daytime, I use a moisturizer with an SPF. At night, I use a deep conditioning moisturizer.”
“I use plenty of sunscreen because prevention is better than cure. Many people are unaware of the effects of the sun on their skin and if I had to pick a product I use the most, it would have to be my sunscreen. And I always carry more than one bottle of it, in case I lose one, if I am traveling”
And they are moisturizer, lots of water and the Neutrogena sunscreen. For make-up, I stick to basics like mascara, a Neutrogena lip balm with SPF and a neutral foundation.
Eyes,brows and lips:
For Deepika, eye makeup seems to be more important and she particularly stresses the eyebrow shape. “Eyebrows are very important,” Deepika says. “If you have the right thickness and shape, I feel they define your face.” Over-thinning and over-drawing are two mistakes women often do.
“What many tend to do is go to a salon and keep threading and threading the brows, and one day they’re left with pencil thin eyebrows”, she says.
“Thicker eyebrows make you look younger” is her stand.”People have the tendency to look straight into the camera, but a little profile always looks nicer,” a little tidbit to aspiring models, while speaking for Vogue.
She loves to makeup with mascara to intensify the killer looks of her razor sharp almond eyes.
“I take care to highlight only one feature at a time when applying make-up, either eyes or lips and never both. I love to use taupe and brown eye shadows, because with these shades I can sometimes risk coloring my lips with darker shades such as reds or plums. It is more important to understand the difference between day and night looks and makeup accordingly.” She prefers to mute her lips with nude lipstick while making up with smokey dramatic eyes.
4) Deepika’s fitness secrets:
Deepika Padukone takes help from a fitness trainer, Yasmin Karachiwala. Deepika usually wakes up at 6:00am and heads towards her garden to do yoga exercises.
“For me fitness, health…. eating healthy is a part of my lifestyle. I don’t do it just for a particular day or for a particular shoot. I know lot of people do that. I know lot of people who eat crazy and don’t work out and suddenly before the shoot in one week they want this amazing body and then they suddenly go on a crash diet and I think that’s why the body just starts yo-yoing and then your hormones can go for a toss. So I think it’s always better to lead balanced healthy life style.”
The celebrity trainer Yasmin has introduced her with a very disciplined and healthy workout regime. Let’s check it:
- Gym: Deepika does not hit the gym regularly but she goes whenever she wants to. She likes to spend time on Pilates and free hand exercises. But when she is on a tour and unable to do exercises she prefer to go to a gym. Sometimes she gets no time to do workouts for about two weeks due to her busy schedule.
- Yoga: She does yoga daily in the morning. She does many yoga asanas which keeps her younger and fresh looking. Yoga keeps her fit and healthy always.
- Walks: Daily after her Yoga session, Deepika likes to walk on a tread mill for 20 minutes which gives her extra boost of energy.
- Dance: There are also few days in Deepika’s fitness regime when she don’t want to do exercises. Alternatively, she chooses dancing to good music which is also a good exercise for the body. It keeps her body slim.
- Pilates and Stretching: “I do a lot of free-hand weights and 4 to 5 sets of stretching exercises with 20 reps, in between Pilates or stretching routines, ” reveals Deepika saying that it is her secret of keeping her body flexible and lithe. Yasmin, her personal trainer has said “Pilates has done wonders on Deepika’s body and she uses a combination of yoga and strength to tighten the core muscles of the body and relaxes the mind. It creates leaner muscle, stability and strength with a focus on building core strength by engaging balance, correct breathing technique and a smooth flow of movement. For Pilates, we used equipment such as reformer, cadillac, wunda chair and mat.”
She is more of an outdoorsy person and loves badminton and adventure activities like cycling, trekking. “My crazy side comes out when I am in action.” says this certified scuba diver. Deepika doesn’t believe that size zero is healthy.
5) Deepika’s Diet secrets:
Deepika takes help of her dietitian Pooja Makhija and also her fitness trainer Yasmin Karachiwala for her diet suggestions.
“I’m too much of a foody. I love eating and I love trying out different types of cuisines but I will balance it out like I make sure that when I’m in Bombay I’m disciplined because I know that my job requires me to travel a lot and when I travel, it obviously means eating food from outside. So what I do then to balance it out is to make sure that when I’m in Bombay, I eat home food as often as possible. If I’m going to shoot I will make sure my maid packs the dabba for me in the morning. I will carry some fruits with me and I will snack on that through the day and so when I do go out and I have a dinner…. If I eat out or if I have a dessert…. then that’s not something I have to worry about… so balanced”.
She loves to eat Thai foods and dark chocolates. She does not believe in crash diet plans or starvation and confessedly, she ‘lives to eat’.
“We recently discovered Quinoa, a carbohydrate substitute high in protien and fiber which has worked wonders for Deepika” says her fitness trainer Yasmin.
Breakfast:
She likes having egg whites, plain dosa with pudina chutney, upma, idlis or paranthas. She avoids potato fillings and egg yolks in her diet. She also prefer to have fruits and coconut water in the morning.
Lunch:
She prefers the common homemade items such dal, rotis, sabji, salad, dahi and raita. She like to eat grilled fish to avoid excess oil. When she have to eat outside, she prefers foods with less oil or idlis with green chutney.
Snacks:
Deepika likes to eat fruits or almonds. She likes to have filter coffee once daily.
Dinner:
Deepika avoids rice, non-veg or heavy foods at dinner. Instead she limits her dinner to a porridge with homemade sabji or a pickle. She eats salads, roti (chapati), veggies. i.e. a complete balanced diet, which provides her almost every nutrient.
On the whole, Deepika likes to eat South Indian food mostly. Yasmin revealed that Deepika eats fresh fruits or drinks juices for every two hours during the day.
Finally Deepika believes in spending herself few minutes every day. “I think something very important that I have learnt is to have ‘me’ time. So whenever I finish shoot I think I enjoy spending time with myself….. real quiet time, listen to music, maybe go to the gym, go for a swim and also try and get as much sleep as possible, eat healthy and just be positive and lead a healthy life style”, suggests the stunning diva.