There are different types of eyebrow embroidery, some can even costs up to S$2000, believe it or not. I’ve done this three times in my life. The first time was done by a home-based beautician, the second time was done at an exhibition, the third time was done at a proper beauty salon just a few blocks away from my mum’s place in Pasir Ris. If you visit Pasir Ris White Sands shopping mall, you will come by quite a large size booth-type ‘salon’ offering eyebrow embroidery services. The sales staff who are mostly from China are good at luring you in, draw a nice template eyebrow on your one side and convince you to do eyebrow embroidery. I was also one of those led into their little shop space, laid on a sofa and one eyebrow ‘specialist’ started drawing. They were pretty good in artwork, so it’s easy to be tempted. To lure you in, they would say 5 dollars for drawing you a sample and for trimming if you decide not to do eyebrow embroidery.

In that little ‘cave’, everyone is forcefully ‘coaxed’ into doing it. At first, they tell you it’s $88, once you say OK and they do it ‘permanently’ on one eyebrow, they tell you another story and say they’re using a better material and it costs $388 or $288, something like that. Then you’re just basically stuck. If you say, no I’ll stick to the 88, then they tell you that they’d have to wash away with an acidic solution the temporary tattoo. This leaves you scared and totally helpless. Out of 100 people, at least 70 would pay $388 or $288 and could not do a thing about it. They even go to the extent to tell you that the $388 is FREE if you sign up their beauty package.

I was lucky to have my quick-witted husband with me. I was very lucky to have escaped just paying $88. Take my word, if you step in there and let them draw your eyebrow it’s hard to get out. If you have such a story, please share it here with us. I’ve since not embroidered my eyebrow, it’s been 3 years now. My sister recently got married and I went to a normal salon, a small private business with one Singaporean lady doing embroidery and that was a good and normal experience. Those people at the booth really tarnish the good Chinese people’s reputation.

So, do your research, don’t go near to those booths without doing your homework.

RATING : 1/10

One time, this young lady at Supercuts Sengkang recommended me to use REDKEN. So I did purchase a tube from her, but it was a lot more expensive than most other places. I found it really effective and have continued using it since. Every once a week I give my hair a good treatment of 15 mins before washing it away. Now I no longer get comments when I go to the salon, so that means my hair is in a better condition?!?!

It’s more expensive than Pantene or Dove, but Redken is a good professional salon brand and it’s proven to be very effective. I highly recommend this product to anyone who has dry hair. Don’t need to spend any more money on endless conditioners and leave in creams. This is all you need.

RATING : 8.5/10

All the supermarket brands I’ve tried, nothing is lasting. Finally I read about Crabtree & Evelyn’s IRIS home collection. I have a country-contemporary style home, so I adore most of their country floral designs and packaging. Recently invested on a reed diffuser, some drawer lining paper and a spray. You can feel the difference, it feels really good to step into home, into your bathroom. It’s a lot more lasting than the usual Glade for example.

LOVE the IRIS fragrance, it’s really enticing. Makes home a happier place to be in.

RATING : 7/10

We have countless bottles of Dettol Hand Sanitizer at home, to keep the germs away. It smells really nice, fresh and clean too. There’re some other brands out there, but I like Dettol for its price and quality. Very good value though slightly more expensive than the other hand sanitizers. I think it’s important for small children to cultivate good hygiene habits so now we always make our little boy rub some Dettol before he touches a new baby or just now and then when he plays at home. When he’s back on from the playground or have just cut his nails, we would wash his hands with Dettol Handwash.

Unlike a lot of hand washing liquids out there, Dettol is more concentrated and the smell lasts longer too. Keep sickness and germs at bay with Dettol. We love it.

RATING : 8/10

GNC came up with this TAUT drink, pretty expensive for a beauty drink in my opinion. Here’s why:- The volume of collagen content in the drink promises to intensively rejuvenate and restore skin elasticity. I have not tried this, but my beauty-addict friend has been drinking this product for about more than 3 months now. She’s got extremely dry skin. If collagen has worked, it should have reduced her wrinkles around the eyes (those are really visible on her) and put some radiance on her skin. No visible improvement, thus I’m sceptical of the product. I don’t think I’m going to try this.

I would probably make a good beauty routine of the basic 3-steps, lots of water plus plenty of moisturisers. Could do the job better, perhaps.

RATING : 2/10

Sensodyne has been doing a lot of advertising on television and the product has been endorsed by many celebrities. It’s more expensive than our regular Darlie or Colgate, but is it really worth the money? Well, it’s only trial size I have, so I’m not entirely sure of its long term benefits. I’m more bothered with the fact that the handful of times that I’ve used it, I felt my mouth is not cleaned properly. It does not have the foaming and super minty taste that Colgate or Darlie has. May be because the fluoride content is lesser or may be it’s supposed to be gentle, I don’t know. It just doesn’t make me feel that my teeth has been cleaned after using it.

I’ll still stick to the old regular brand I suppose. Would you use it knowing it has all the benefits of good teeth, but ‘feeling’ that your teeth is still dirty?

RATING : 3/10

It promises to give up to 10x more moisturizer. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do feel 10x more sticky after applying. The stickiness just doesn’t go away until I fall asleep. I don’t know, probably not fully absorbed. I would still prefer a cream that’s easily absorbed into the skin, matte and dry 10 minutes later. It’s just too sticky to continue using it for daily purposes, I will keep this to massage DH, but never buy another bottle again.

Smell is great, texture is fine, but it makes me feel as though all the cream I applied on the skin is still there on the skin. Never again. DH though, enjoys the massage cream because it doesn’t dry out easily… Perfect for him!!

RATING : 2/10

When I was a kid, mum would always persuade and coax me into swallowing one teaspoon daily. ‘All the essence in one teaspoon’ she used to say. Those days, there was only the original flavour available probably and it was difficult to swallow – it smelt like raw fish and I remember I used to dread it everyday. Now, I buy the orange flavour bottle for my son. He’s good at picking smells and I can see him struggling a wee bit whenever the orange colour liquid is presented to him. I now try to coax him with a sweet afterwards so that he swallows it.

I believe in the goodness of cod liver oil, so I’m going to be persistent to try to make him like this. Remember: all the essence in one.

RATING : 8/10

We’ve tried the Blue, Red and Orange and we adore all of them. It’s really cheap – $6.50 a huge bottle at the value store, don’t buy at the supermarkets. It can last really long and is really value for money. The smell and texture is very very similar to the Lux range, but Lux is drying and I’ve got very sensitive skin. In comparison to Lux or Dettol shower range, this makes me feel totally clean, love and look forward to my shower time now everyday and I think DH will agree with me on this.

Finally a Unisex product that we share and are so fond of together!

RATING : 9/10

It’s supposed to minimise enlarged pores and refine skin texture. Sounds good on the tin, but most mattifying products don’t do their job I’m sure you’ll agree if you’ve tried a few of them. I got a sample of this product from a friend and has only last three applications. Before makeup, I’ve used a little of this rich and hydrating lotion on my T-zone and it really kept shine away. Most of the time, even with makeup and moisturizer underneath, my T-zone would be really shiny by mid-day.

This is really good, so I’m going to pamper myself with one of these full-size bottles soon. Also may be find a suitable compact powder to go along with it.

RATING : 8/10