No foundation or sweet drinks: Jeanette Aw talks beauty in her 40s and comeback lead TV role

Straits Times

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Jeanette Aw pictured at the opening of Nailz Haus at Ngee Ann City on June 27.
SINGAPORE – Jeanette Aw has not worn foundation on screen in 22 years.
The local TV star says she was told to ditch the base make-up to better suit her breakout role as naive ingenue Mo Jingjing in the Channel 8 drama Holland V (2003).
'When it aired, nobody realised,' says Aw. Later, it was simply 'a lot easier' to act in her bare skin, when full coverage would have meant tedious touch-ups after sweaty outdoor shots or her many crying scenes.
Now, some 30 TV series and a six-year acting hiatus later, the 46-year-old is filming her comeback show – still sans foundation. While acting, she typically wears only concealer.
When The Straits Times meets Aw on June 27 at the opening of nail salon Nailz Haus' new Ngee Ann City outlet, she says her secret to youthful skin is consistency.
She has kept up the same skincare regimen – 'not beauty', she is careful to say – since her 20s, finding little to tweak in her 40s.
Keeping off thick make-up to let her skin breathe is one thing. Other habits she swears by include drinking lots of warm water, no sweet drinks – which she quit in secondary school after her PE teacher said the sugar would undo the work done in class – and double cleansing every day.
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She says: 'I use an oil cleanser first and then a very gentle face wash. That's the thing I really believe in.'
Her zeal for cleaning goes all the way down to her toes. She exfoliates her heels for up to a month straight at times, particularly when they get cracked and dry after work trips to Japan for her patisserie Once Upon A Time's pop-ups there, she says.
Her second career in the food and beverage industry also means she keeps her nails bare. 'At most, a shine and buff,' she says.
But beyond the skin deep, in her inner and professional life, the actress has moved far away from the limitations of her 20s.
She was drawn out of on-screen retirement by the depth of her character in the upcoming drama Highway To Somewhere, a woman who goes on a road trip with her husband (Romeo Tan) to mend their flagging marriage.
It is her first leading role in a Mediacorp Chinese-language drama since After The Stars (2019).
Set to premiere in March 2026, the series is based on marital conflict that cuts close to the bone for many real-life couples, with depictions of quarrels and secrets, she says. 'There's a lot of emotional layers to her.'
Jeanette Aw as her character in Highway To Somewhere.
PHOTO: MEDIACORP
'Some characters are loud, with a lot of big actions, and (require) a very outward kind of performance. But I tend to be into the deep, heartfelt, emotional performance right now and that is what really called out to me.'
It is a departure from the cutesy mould of her earlier roles. In a Freudian slip, Aw accidentally refers to her younger self in the third person while discussing her role as a 'young, silly girl' in Holland V.
It was a suitable gig for her at that age and one she has a lot of affection for, but she has grown into heavier roles, she says.
That the complex and meaty characters she played in The Little Nyonya (2008) and The Dream Makers (2013) ebbed into typecast offers was in part behind her decision to leave the local entertainment industry in 2019.
She took up bit parts in Chinese dramas afterwards and made a cameo in Emerald Hill (2025), the sequel to The Little Nyonya, though filming did not go beyond 10 days.
Highway To Somewhere calls for more subtle acting, the micro-expressions that betray true feeling.
'I really like that,' she adds.
How did Aw make the leap? Life experience is what acting comes down to, she says.
In the six-year break she took from the 'sheltered world' of show business to start Once Uopn A Time in 2021, she was cheated by a contractor.
She had paid him a lump sum to make deliveries, with the money meant to cover his fees over time – but he disappeared without making a single run, she says. The four-figure loss stung.
It was a novel experience, she adds. 'In the entertainment industry, I was very protected. I didn't meet a lot of people, just other actors, the production team and the media.'
Running her own ship also pushed her into giving instructions, instead of taking direction.
She was no longer playing roles and reading scripts, she says, referring to the heightened stakes of real-world ventures.
The bachelorette adds: 'When you have all that in you, that's when you can scale back and do all the inner work for an actor.'
Once hailed as one of the 'Seven Princesses of Mediacorp', Aw is sceptical at the suggestion of a new generation discovering her work on Netflix. The streaming giant acquired the rights to The Little Nyonya in 2016 and Emerald Hill in 2024.
Still, she obliges in dispensing some counsel to younger women: 'Just do what makes you happy, and double cleanse.'