Your Lola Was Right All Along: Filipino Grooming Goes Back to Its Roots

Remember when a previous generation laughed off raw, homemade hair remedies as backward? Honestly, now, take a look at your parents’ bathroom today and count the rows of imported plastic tubes crowding the sink. Every surface is cluttered with synthetic formulations for highly specific problems. Meanwhile, a quieter shift is happening on our own vanities: we are reaching for the very same ancestral oils they left behind, realizing they hold the actual key to daily self-care.

This intergenerational leapfrogging is universal and rarely an act of nostalgia. When heritage rituals skip generations and resurface, it looks more like an adaptive, intelligent response to the deficits of a hyper-processed modern world. 

While a previous generation often sidelined traditional practices to pursue global trends and commercial convenience, a discerning new generation is looking past those sterile shelves. Amid all of today’s consciousness and intentional movement toward what is real and pure and good for the body, are we actually realizing that true daily wellness isn’t manufactured in a remote lab? It was always growing quietly in our own soil, waiting to be reclaimed as a natural, learned choice.

Reclaiming our backyard botanicals isn’t a retreat into the past; it is an awakening. We are realizing that the cold-pressed oils, crushed leaves, and steeped infusions of our ancestors weren’t primitive, makeshift remedies. They were part of a sophisticated, time-tested system of daily care. We are currently stepping back onto the earth not out of blind obligation, but with the clarity of clean science.

This generational shift has birthed a new standard of conscious daily routines, anchored by local trailblazers who prove that the Philippine ecosystem is a goldmine of pure utility. They have reinvented the old staple oils and herbs once shunned by modern commercialism and revitalized a dying industry with their own concoctions, using the same ingredients that have since been proven truly healthy.

We see it in the zero-waste ethos championed by Ritual, an eco-apothecary that strips daily routines down to the basic brilliance of raw, plant-based ingredients and traditional small-batch liquid soaps. They remind us that daily cleansing functions best when it honors the simplicity of nature. “(Using local ingredients) wasn’t a big decision but (we) just began to make things we would use ourselves from ingredients we would use on ourselves, too,” Ritual co-founder Bea Misa Crisostomo says. They use natural ingredients because they’re simple and do not have side effects or toxins. “Sometimes the trendy beauty ingredients will be exposed as toxic a few years down the line. It’s best to stick to natural things,” she adds.

Our heritage routines were always rooted in superior organic chemistry, a fact that is highly evident in how we now treat the ubiquitous coconut. Dermtropics has elevated this local staple into clinically backed skincareSkincareThe regular practice of cleansing, treating, moisturizing, and protecting the skin to keep it healthy. For men, a simple routine of cleanser, moisturizer, and sunscreen goes a long way, andGo to Skincare Glossary, utilizing an innovative unheated, wet-milling process to extract pure virgin coconut oil within 48 hours of harvest. By preserving four times more natural antioxidants than traditional methods, they prove that ancestral wisdom doesn’t just compete with modern skincare—it outperforms it. This precise formulation was developed by founders Miko and Margeaux Lucena—both dealing with highly sensitive skin—alongside Margeaux’s dermatologist mother, Dr. Julieta Arambulo.

Similarly, our daily showers have undergone an awakening. For centuries, heritage practices relied on gugo bark for strong, lustrous hair. Today, Sibol Organic Hair Care gives this powerful ingredient a modern format. Sibol uses a broad range of local bio-assets—including sabila (aloe vera), malunggay (moringa), blue ternate, gumamela (hibiscus), rice, gotu kola, bayabas (guava leaf), and yerba buena (Philippine mint)—fused with local virgin coconut oil. For Sibol, the appeal goes beyond simply being “natural.” They believe there is something meaningful about combining traditional botanical knowledge with responsible, contemporary product development.

Even the deep, volcanic forests of Bicol have found a permanent place on our vanities through Pili Ani, the only skincare brand in the world utilizing the unique, ultra-hydrating synergy of Pili and Elemi oils as an international symbol of ethical luxury. And for the moments when the pace of modern life demands grounding, Dr Essentials Aromatherapy integrates pure, unadulterated plant extracts and travel balms into our bags for instant, daily relief.

Ultimately, this isn’t a return to your lola’s ritualistic oils—and yet, it is the exact same alchemy. The difference lies entirely in the execution. Reclaimed through clean science and ethical farming, these domestic extracts are now engineered for a discerning utilitarian. The modern man has evolved into a slow care curator, someone fiercely judicious about his physical blueprint and intentional about his daily regimen. It is the final realization that the most intelligent luxury isn’t found in a mass-produced chemical bottle, but has always been quietly cultivated in our homegrown soil.