Nadine Lustre took a trip down memory lane, as she recalled how she used to feel insecure of her morena skin before eventually learning how to embrace its beauty.

The actress said in a reaction video on One Down’s YouTube channel on Wednesday, March 27, that she used to feel insecure about her skin tone, when asked to react to a hot take claiming that “darker skin is not beautiful.”

“I do not agree with this. I think when I was about 13, people would say that I was too dark. When I would go to auditions, they would cast girls who are mestiza or have lighter skin. It became an insecurity of mine,” she said.

This led Lustre to try different treatments to lighten her skin tone before learning how to love it on its own as she grew up.

“I really went through the whole thing where you do [certain things to whiten your skin]. You use [things] such as whitening soap, or you scrub calamansi on your body, or lemon,” she said. “As I grew up, I learned to just love the skin that I’m in, and to just appreciate the beauty that I have.”

During the interview, the “Deleter” star also recalled a past trip to France where she came across people who “really liked” her skin color.

“When I traveled to France, people really liked my skin color. They would say, ‘Damn, I wish I could get your tan.’ People just like what they don’t have,” she said.

Lustre is known for pushing for self-love on multiple occasions, such when she admitted in a January 2024 interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer that being “calm and composed” is a matter of being one’s self, like what happened after she had a “terrible burn-out.”

“I’m unapologetic about who I am. I say what I want to say, and I do what I want to do. And that comes off like a big puzzle to some because, for someone in the midst of all this in show biz, we’re so used to having people who are afraid to speak up—and I’m definitely not like that,” she was quoted as saying.