Facial treatments in Singapore - Are they worth $200 If you can 'DIY' at home?

Facials are crazy expensive in Singapore. At most respectable spas and salons, a 60- to 90-minute facial would probably cost you $150 to $200+. Ouch.

And unlike aesthetic clinics that use fancy machinery to do all sorts of voodoo on your face, a basic facial is fairly, well, low-tech. All you need are just a few simple tools and skincare products you probably already have, and you can replicate the results yourself with DIY facials at home.  

Let’s take a look at what facials are, how much they cost at salons, and how much it would cost to do them at home instead.

HOW MUCH DO FACIALS COST IN SINGAPORE?

As mentioned above, the a la carte prices for facial treatments at mid- to high-end spas usually cost between $150 to $200. And if you get a package, you may get a slight discount.

Regardless of the spa you’re at, a basic facial is pretty straightforward:

1. Cleansing, to remove makeup and dirt
2. Exfoliation or steaming, to softening your skin
3. Extraction, to “squeeze” out pimples, and white- and blackheads 
4. Mask application, to calm your skin 
5. Toner and moisturiser application, to finish off  

Although completely unrelated to your skin, there is more often than not a step 6 to the facial process — the upselling of facial packages.

Tip: Beware of upselling!

This is undoubtedly the most stressful part of the experience. (Hello? Facials are done at spas, and spas are supposed to be relaxing, okay?)

Once done, you can expect the aesthetician to sit you down and tell you how much better your skin looks… before proceeding to scare you with how “bad” it originally was.

The “solution”, obviously being their super expensive facial packages.

Not convinced? That’s alright. You can “at least take the basic package”, which typically still costs a couple of hundred, and come up to at least $70 to $100+ per session. 

But is there any other way to get even cheaper facials?

IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET DISCOUNTS FOR FACIALS?

Well, for starters, you can consider cheap neighbourhood salons. If you were to take this route, I strongly suggest trawling the internet for reviews and asking for recommendations.

There’s no governing body that “regulates” this industry, so a lousy facial could very well leave you with a face full of inflamed spots and scars.

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Alternatively, if you can’t find a cheap salon that you trust, try looking on Fave.

Tip: Buy first-timer facial vouchers on Fave

Fave — previously known as Groupon — sells discounted vouchers for a ton of stuff, including beauty services like facial treatments.

We’ve also mentioned in other articles that you can score similarly good deals for aesthetics-related services like eyebrow embroidery, teeth whitening and other semi-permanent makeup procedures.

On Fave, facials cost $18 to $70+, with the most of them being in the $28 to $38 range. Although you won’t see top spas like My Cozy Room, Ikeda Spa and etc selling vouchers there, there are quite a handful of reasonably well-known chains like AsterSpring, Jean Yip and more.

Anything under $50 is quite value-for-money when you compare it to the a la carte prices of $150 to $200. However, the limitation of Fave is that most deals are for first-time customers only.

So what happens when you’ve hopped around all the decent spas and run out of first-timer perks?

Then it’s time to try DIY-ing facials at home.

DIY FACIALS AT HOME - IS IT WORTH A TRY?

If you’re a vain pot beauty junkie, you probably already have a whole dresser lined up with skincare products. That means, even if you need to pick up a few inexpensive facial tools, you already have most (if not all) the “ingredients” for a home facial.

Let’s assume you have already have the basics (cleanser, toner and moisturiser), as well as cotton pads. Here’s what else you need:

How much you’ll actually spend depends on what tier of “atas” you prefer when it comes to skincare products. If you don’t mind drugstore brands, you can probably pick everything up from Guardian and Watsons for around $30, or a little more.

We picked a mix of items from different brands: We got an affordable facial scrub from Innisfree for just $13, and decided to splurge a little more on an Origins clay mask ($22).

If you don’t want to commit to a full tube of that, you can opt for cheaper sheet masks too. The popular Taiwanese My Beauty Diary ones are only $2 at Watsons.

Not forgetting the pimple-popping tool ($3.95) and alcohol swabs ($4.80 for 100pcs)  to sterilise it.

But even if you need branded skincare and shop at say, Sephora, you probably won’t spend over $90. And that’s for a bunch of stuff that can probably last you many, many home facials.

Not so willing to shell out for salon facials anymore, are you?

This article was first published in MoneySmart .