Mia's Review: Mordecai Skin [Sponsored]

Recently, with thanks to Street Directory and Mordecai Skin, I experienced my very first facial IPL!
Started out as a franchise of Face of Men, Mordecai Skin still mainly targets male youth, who faces embarrassing facial problems. Yes, they're actually a men's facial parlour, however, also welcomes ladies. In fact, as according to their management, they do have a substantial number of female patrons, who placed themselves as 'guinea pigs' for their partners.
And frankly speaking, after my session, I am indeed contemplating to drag T over for one as well. If only he's not so against facial. T.T  

Located at Ang Mo Kio, 5 minutes walk from Djitsun Mall, my first impression as I made my way over slowly from AMK Mrt station was, 'Wow, is this some facial parlour heaven?' As I walk along the shop houses, facial place after facial place just came into sight. I totally lost count of how many facial beauty parlours I saw before I came to Mordecai Skin. With this crazy amount of competition in just the neighbourhood, much less to say against the big franchises, I was filled with nothing but respect for their beliefs and ideals of doing proper business.
Now what's that about? We'll get to it in a while.

If you didn't know, Mordecai was the cousin and guardian of Esther, Queen of King Xerves, who taught her the meaning of both inner and outer beauty. And by adopting his name, Mordecai Skin shows their belief that beauty runs deeper beyond the surface of our skin and their ideal in treating their customers' skin issue from inside out.

Using only Eve Taylor's products, which do not contain Lancolin, Mineral Oil Artificial fragrance or SC alcohol, and are natural and gentle to the skin,

And let's get back to the proper business I've mentioned earlier, shall we?

I believe many of us (me included) is always hesitant or even shun such beauty facial parlours all because of one fear. 

Hardselling of packages. 

Some hardsell tactics are so unethical, they even resort to lying to get customers to top up for better, more expensive treatment. Halfway into your 10 sessions package, and they'll start goading you to sign on another set of 10 sessions for a better treatment, telling you ala carte prices will be $300 per session but with 10x package, 1 session is only $150 etc. And if you take 20x package, you get free mask every session! 

I'm sure most of you will know the painful annoyance of such hardselling tactics. 

And guess what, at Mordecai, you'll never need to undergo such stress at all. With strong beliefs in not just doing good business, but also to do good in business, Mordecai decided to do away with those special per session pricing of large packages and strongly recommend that patrons stick to a pay-per-session ala carte system, by making the cost of an ala carte session exactly the same as a package session. Their trusted therapists also do not go on a commission based remuneration package, which totally eliminates any tendency of pushing for any sorts of packages, ever. Rejoice, men... and ladies! 

Now, let's get on with my first facial IPL treatment experience, shall we?

I was ushered into a comfortably dimmed, clean treatment room and immediately asked to lie on the bed. First thought, "You forgot to pass me my robes to change...?"

It turned out, as Mordecai Skin mainly caters to males, they do not provide shoulder and back massage like other facial parlours do. They decided to extend this exclusion to the ladies as well, due to the thought that it will probably cause inconveniences to the ladies dressed in skimpy robes in the rooms while other male patrons are walking about outside. Well, you do understand that the therapist do exit and enter the treatment room many times in a single session, yeah? 

Thoughtful indeed. 

And after putting my hair out of my face, the therapist removed all traces of make up and cleansed/exfoliated my skin thoroughly before putting me under the steamer to open up my pores for a very thorough extraction. 

See how red (and swollen) my face was, right after the long extraction! I personally wouldn't term the extraction pain as okay, but it's definitely bearable for me, having survived my usual home facial therapist for years. 

And of course, after extraction was high frequency to kill all the bacteria...

Then a layer of cooling gel was applied onto my face and a pair of eye protection was placed on my eyes, and the IPL session commenced! Initially, I was bracing myself for the pain but was pleasantly surprised to know that actually facial IPL are at much lower degree to prevent burning of the skin and hence, there's no pain at all! Just a slight warming sensation coming from the part of the machine that's in contact with my skin. 

After the IPL, the therapist did a acupoint facial massage for me to 'detox' the skin and melt my stress away, coupled with an ampoule that smelled strongly of tea tree oil. 

And finally, the mask was applied, which was pretty cold (to further soothe down the redness) and smelled of apple and yogurt, a pretty yummy scent actually. 

Looking really nerdy intelligent in my favourite (actually is one and only) pair of thick black rimmed glasses.
But that's actually not the focus. See my face, no signs of redness or swelling at all! Pictures were also taken under normal lighting and I've not done any sort of filtering to make my skin look any better than how it looks on the mirror.
Even though facial IPL, other than to rejuvenate the skin, also helps to gradually shrink our open pores, I was obviously unable to see any visible changes in my pores size after this one session. However, my skin definitely felt softer and smoother, and the effect was pretty lasting. I was truly amazed at how smooth my skin felt when I was washing my face in the showers when I got home, and the soft and smooth feeling actually lasted even up till now (been 1 week!).

And you know what, Mordecai Skin only charges $130 for the entire IPL treatment session. The management actually very humbly admitted that they're not exactly very cheap when it comes to their treatment prices, even though they've tried their best to give customers the best price possible. But after checking with a friend, who has been doing facial IPL treatment at a home salon, I realised that prices at home salons can go up to $110 per session!
With just $20 more, we get much more convenience of not needing to head to a stranger's home alone, better services, and promises of NO hardselling.
Why not?

Mordecai Skin is located at
Blk 728 AMK Ave 6 #01-4214 Singapore 560728

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,
Mia

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Mia's Review: Brazillian VPL at Pretty 360

Just earlier this week I went for an appointment at Pretty 360 (located at Singapore Shopping Centre) with the intention of redeeming my streetdeal voucher (worth only $118) for 1 year unlimited, unlimited shots Brazillian IPL with them. Didn't take any photos (except for the bed in the treatment room) while I was there but they simply came across as just a very small nail parlour to me when I first arrived. Only when they lead me to another shop unit located around the corner did I realise they not only do hair removal treatment, but also facial spas.
And because I was immediately led into the treatment room and asked to change and lie down on the bed, I immediately put my heart to rest, thinking, "Great, no hardselling! Do it and go!"

How wrong I was! Not just hardselling, but hard-smoking too.

After I changed into the treatment gown and my undies removed, both the consultant and therapist came into the tiny treatment room and started scrutinising my hair growth at the brazillian area, giving a really eye-rolling comment: Oh, your brazillian area is very pretty! (Like WHAT???)
But the ultimatum came soon after that. "But your hair is very thick and it curls inwards, you cannot do IPL." Not only that, the consultant further added on, "Not everyone can do IPL, must see hair growth."

Googled. Nothing similar came up. Obviously smoked me. And I got cheated.

Next up was a blur of quick mumblings about bacteria growth, the direction of my hair growth, bacteria will go into my womb, IPL is not safe, cannot do the inner region but VPL can because they're safer.
And that's yet another lie because after checking with an acquaintance who did brazillian IPL at Strips, you can go till the butt hole.
And lastly, she said VPL just gives you warming sensation, there's NO PAIN.
This worked like a snap of the finger for me, and I immediately asked, "So how much do I have to top up?"
Cheaters always cheat and liars always lie, don't they? For the consultant immediately replied that their packages are very cheap, 1k plus 2k only... Which obviously isn't true.
It took not much longer for the truth to be revealed. With my horribly coarse hair growth (so bad that I CANNOT do IPL), I will need 12 sessions to guarantee reduction to visibly lesser, 'few baby hair' type of growth...
Oh wait, is my hair really the King Kong equivalent in the hair world or is their VPL actually that sucky?
And guess how much I was quoted? A whopping $6880 for that, GST is not included. But they were very nice to give a 50% discount, plus the consultant (Lydia) very generously used her staff voucher on me and cut my package to just $3000.
Now that I dug up my invoice to blog about this scam, I realised they didn't even refund me the amount I've paid streetdeal for the IPL voucher. WTF.

But oh well, what's done is done. Let's get on to the treatment. My therapist, Carol, soon came in with all the necessary tools, namely scissors, disposable shaver (didn't see it, but I do hope they don't recycle their shavers) and baby wipes. After placing a sheet of plastic/paper napkin below my butt, she started trimming away my hair, which was quite a scary experience for me, for at times I can feel the hold metal of the scissors against my skin as she trimmed. After trimming me down, she started shaving. OMG, pain. T.T Let's just say she isn't very light handed to begin with (and I'm not sure if I'll prefer her to go light either... #awkwardmoment) and with all the tugging, and forcing of the shaving blade across coarse hairs....
But oh well, I kept repeating to myself. "It's okay, there'll be no pain during VPL." And with that, I re-confirmed it with Carol, to which she replied in Mandarin, "Yeah, VPL is just warm-warm lor."

Finally, the shaving is done and Carol applied a layer of gel to my entire brazillian region, supposedly to remove bacteria. After a while, she then removed the gel with more baby wipes before returning with the VPL machine and cooling gel. As heard from an acquaintance who is doing brazillian IPL with Strips, the cooling gel they use is simply f*cking cold (quoting her) so much so that it numbs the entire area. So even if the IPL shots did inflict pain, she couldn't feel them. HA HA HA!
But for Pretty 360, their cooling gel really isn't that cold at all. Plus, Carol applied the gel and then started the machine and we gotta wait for the machine to warm up for quite a while, during which the cooling gel has started to get warm from my body heat. When the machine is finally ready, she reached for a towel and place it over my eyes. I was totally thinking, "Huh, earning so much from such expensive packages they can't even afford those glasses?"
And then, came the moment of truth. First VPL shot and I yelped. I felt as if she has flicked an elastic band at me, no joke. So what's with all the lies about VPL being painless, warm-warm sensation only, unlike IPL?
Needless to say, I complained about the pain and Carol apparently tried to tune the machine down for the subsequent pulses but the pain per shot never dulled. No choice, I've paid the money and I can only grit my teeth and tolerate the pain for that roughly 8 shots (can't remember) she fired... and for the next 11 sessions to come.

After all shots were fired, she wiped off the gel with baby wipes again and applied the complimentary whitening mask and left me resting for a while more before giving me a final wipe-down.
And there you have it, first treatment done!

The skin was smooth and nice immediately after the session and frankly speaking I was pretty impressed. But came 2nd day, the hair all started to grow and my skin turned red and blotchy. On the 3rd day, I also developed an uncomfortable itch (perhaps due to the growing hair, as preempted by Carol) and the red blotchiness didn't go away. I remembered about the FOC roller gel they gave me, which they called it a depilever or something, and applied it on the 3rd and 4th night. And now on the 5th day, the itch and redness/blotchiness has gone away. But from the looks of the stubble growth, the first treatment didn't seem to work very well.
But I shall monitor the subsequent sessions and update the progress as we go along.
For more information, visit their FB HERE

Till then,
Mia

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