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By Alli Sim and Dominique Yohanes
From Sulwhasoo to Rationale and more, these beloved beauty brands provide in-store facial and spa treatments with a pro touch to help you get the most out of their skincare technology. Shop and surrender to some serious self-care with these pampering facials
Obsessed with your favourite skincare brand and want to extend that experience to an on-brand facial? These Singapore in-store spas give you the best of both worlds: the chance to shop and stock up on all your skincare and make-up essentials while also sneaking to their plush facial cabins for a bit of TLC in-store.
Because for all the convenience of purchasing at-home spa supplies with the click of a button, the experience can never quite compare to full, in-person luxury. And little is more indulgent than a sumptuous facial to complement your skincare stock-up, or vice versa.
So what do these in-house facials by your favourite skincare brands offer? From La Prairie and the Elemis flagship stores in Singapore’s luxe ION mall to the temple of Korean skincare that is the Sulwhasoo Spa within its flagship at the historic Capitol Building, these decked-out treatment rooms enable you to indulge in the best your favourite brand has to offer and include spa-exclusive skincare products, expert facial massage techniques and consulting services to boot.
Best of all, the treatments considered are genuinely high-powered, yielding tangible effects in improving your appearance. You’ll feel that much more lifted, revitalised and firmed long after you’ve left the treatment cabin.
Below, see Vogue Singapore’s recommendations for the best of Singapore in-store spas that combine luxury skincare shopping with equally indulgent treatment options.
If you’ve ever left a facial wondering what exactly your therapist did for 60 minutes because your ‘after’ seems to look exactly like your ‘before’, rest assured that this won’t happen to you at results-driven Rationale.
Beyond the ultra-modern interiors of Rationale’s Raffles City flagship are the largest facial treatment rooms in Singapore. This prime real estate is entirely dedicated to the restoration and rejuvenation of skin. The Australian beauty brand offers a comprehensive menu of facial experiences to deliver on the prized facets of healthy skin: from resilience, vitality and brilliance to integrity, clarity and renewal. Those who need a gentle, hands-on initiation to the brand will love Rationale’s 90-minute Signature Skin Consultation with a complimentary Instant Restorative Facial, priced at $100. One of the most in-depth skin counselling experiences you’re likely to experience with any beauty brand, the encounter includes a facial scan and uses data and imaging alongside your Skin Specialist’s touch to assess your most pressing skin concerns. These could include UV damage, sebum levels, inflammation, pigmentation, fine lines, pore size and bacteria levels.
If you prefer to jump straight to a treatment, we swear by Rationale’s EpiNova Brilliance facial, $340 for 90 minutes. The standout treatment is geared at lifting and contouring the face via microcirculation massage, stimulating LED light and ultrasonic technology. It’s the perfect combination of skilful microcirculation massage with a gentle gommage and enzymatic ingredients, alongside ultrasonic technology that helps you emerge with a revitalised, renewed and utterly radiant complexion.
Rationale, 252 North Bridge Rd, #01/19 Raffles City Shopping Centre, Singapore 179103 Open 7 days, 11am to 8.30pm Tel: 6436 3567
La Prairie‘s Swiss-inspired flagship in ION Orchard boasts not one but two cosy treatment rooms where the offerings address a bevy of skincare concerns, from firming and anti-ageing to brightening and rejuvenation.
Exclusive to the ION boutique is their 60-minute White Caviar Illuminating and Firming Facial, $560, an ultra-indulgent experience that promotes and evens out the skin tone. Combined with acupressure massage administered by hand, the treatment also contains Golden Caviar extracts to tone, firm and hydrate the complexion. Emerge from this urban escape with skin that’s illuminated and smoother than ever.
La Prairie, 2 Orchard Turn, #B1/15A ION Orchard, Singapore 238801 Open 7 days, 11am to 9pm Tel: 6235 2042
If you’re a fan of the premium K-beauty brand’s ginseng-powered skincare and cult First Care Activating Serum and want to prolong the pleasure, Sulwhasoo provides sensorial journeys at their Beauty Lounge. Bringing the best of innovative hanbang skin science to you. Here in this tranquil, sophisticated space, science-backed skincare works in tandem with Korean medical wisdom and beauty traditions to help restore radiance and equilibrium to the skin.
Sulwhasoo’s exclusive flagship store at the Capitol features three facial cabins and two exclusive facial treatments: the Prestige Timeless Treasure and Rejuvenating Fusion Treatment respectively.
Treat yourself to the ultra-pampering Prestige Timeless Treasure, $480 for 90 minutes, which offers the ultimate anti-ageing care. Incorporating the use of the Timetreasure Honorstige line together with an obsidian applicator, this intensive facial aids in reducing the signs of ageing—including fine lines, wrinkles and sagging—for skin that’s glowing and youthful once more. As with many of these luxe faicals, extractions are not on the cards however a toe-curlingly delightful facial massage certainly is. The holistic treatment does more than just nourish and fortify the skin with Korean ginseng; it also dedicates time to the delicate eye area with a gold film treatment to help restore luminosity to the eye zone.
Sulwhasoo, 15 Stamford Rd, #01/72-73, Singapore 178906 Open 7 days, 11am to 9pm Tel: 6844 9766
Beloved for their spa-in-a-jar Pro Collagen Cleansing Balm and Victoria Beckham‘s pregnancy essential, the Japanese Camellia Oil Blend, British skincare brand Elemis brings together the best of science and scent with transportive aromatherapy blends.
Their expansive ION shop space features an intimate facial cabin where skin experts lavish TLC on weary complexions. Each Elemis Skin Wellness Journey begins with a HD Camera Skin Analysis complete with facial mapping and in-depth analysis of your skin. Their signature treatment is the collagen-boosting Elemis Biotec Line Eraser Facial, $280 for 60 minutes, which features a specialised facial machine that incorporates ultrasound technology, microcurrents, galvanic infusion, light therapy and an oxygen infusion. But it’s so much more than tech tools: our therapist-turned-trainer, Jenny, lavished a lot of love on stuck lymphatic points on the face, neck and décolletage, working out tension in facial muscles while digitally inducing that Elemis glow.
Targeting wrinkles with microcurrent pulses, the treatment boosts circulation, stimulating the production of collagen and elastin while flooding the dermis with hyaluronic hydration activators. This also helps the delivery of Elemis’ skincare actives and botanicals to your skin, minimising fine lines and helping you to emerge with a brighter, clearer and rejuvenated complexion. Finally, stimulating red and blue lights are shone on the face to de-stress the skin, plumping up contours and filling in lines. In this perfect blend of aromatherapy, skin technology and the skilled hands of your therapist who is all too familiar with refining and contouring the skin, it’s the perfect solution for those wanting to both feel and look good.
Elemis, 2 Orchard Turn, #B1/15 ION Orchard, Singapore 238801 Open 7 days, 10am to 10pm Tel: 6509 4234
Get ready for a hands-on experience at Clarins. The nature-inspired brand’s flagship skin spa store is located in ION Orchard, and offers the perfect opportunity to slip away from the bustle of Orchard Road.
Within the serene treatment rooms, Clarins’s beauty therapists will see to your face, hand and body needs with their personalised, plant extract-powered spa treatments. With a focus on the bespoke, your treatment will be proceeded by an in-depth skin diagnosis with products and techniques tailored to you. For a firming facial, the Lifting Shaper priced at $255 for 75 minutes lifts and firms the facial contours to redefine your face shape. Meanwhile, a host of other targeted facial options address other individual concerns, such as the 60-minute Radiance Booster, $190. This facial restores your face’s glow and vitality with a boost of energising, hydrating and soothing plant extracts together with your expert therapist’s bespoke manual techniques.
Clarins, 2 Orchard Turn, #B2/35-36 ION Orchard, Singapore 238801 Open 7 days, 10am to 10pm Tel: 6509 0312
Clé de Peau Beauté perfectly merges the exquisite sensibilities of Japanese and French approaches to skincare and make-up. There’s no better place to experience this first-hand than at the brand’s Mandarin Gallery boutique. Whilst the store-and-spa concept is available at the brand’s other outlets island-wide, this flagship boutique elevates the experience by extending available treatments to 80 minutes from the standard 60, courtesy of additional pampering steps.
Within your treatment’s timeframe, skin will be rejuvenated for visible benefits. The Intensive Brightening Facial Treatment, $200, targets radiance boosting for the skin, by way of the brand’s Key Radiance Care and Brightening ranges. Among the benefits of this treatment are enhanced skin repair and moisturising resulting in a heightened glow. Meanwhile, the indulgent Firming Supreme Facial Treatment, also $200, uses the brand’s premium Supreme range of skincare to address ageing by firming and lifting amid combating other ageing stressors, while also locking in a vibrant glow.
33A Orchard Rd, #01/09 Mandarin Gallery, Singapore 238864 Open 7 days, 11am to 9.30pm Tel: 9771 4467
By Alli Sim and Dana Koh
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