The Fancl facial experience

Finally gotten a slot to try out the facial by Fancl after 3 months of waiting. The appointments are forever full when I tried to call. So I'm very excited to go for the facial after many months of self maintenance at home.

The bad thing is that the appointment timings are very weird. For the evenings there is only 6.30pm or 8pm. There is no 7pm. Good thing is I can have a proper dinner before the facial instead of rushing all the way.

The Fancl ladies are very friendly and approachable. The beautician first do a skin analysis for me as it was my first visit for facial. She shows me that healthy/ desired skin condition is where there you can see neat triangles on your skin when magnified. For me, the triangles around the cheekbones appear stretched while the cheeks area seems quite ok. It all boils down to the fact that my skin is not hydrated enough. Besides I have a quite constantly peeling nose. Improvision to skin care routine to take extra effort to moisturise the skin there.

The beautician then leads me to a room to change and proceed with the usual facial procedures. What I like about facial at Fancl is that there is no hard selling and they are not pushy. This is a major plus point to me. I had my facial done in peace and quiet with occasional screeching and screaming from kids as the facial room is just next to the Fancl counter. This is perfectly okay with me.

The beautician is very thoughtful and gentle. Good! Hope she still serves me for my next appointment.

During the facial session, beautician will assess your skin conditions and then advise you accordingly the price and the kind of facial she will be doing on you. No worries as the price is very affordable.

Once done, there will be a hot cup of green tea waiting for you outside beside the confy chair. The serivce don't lose out to any other facial players in the market. Except much better as they don't hard sell. This is the first facial that actually makes you feel good as the beautician does not critize your skin until its like so worthless. She will just say truthfully what is your skin condition, the good and the bad with no critizism involved.

While you are enjoying the green tea, she won't rush you, she will enquires if there is any products you need to stock up and she will quietly disappears and takes them for you. No rush at all.

I'm a convert. Fancl facial tops my list now. Ad hoc pay as you do your facial each time. No package, no hard selling, no pushy sales.

Mushroom Soup

What is heartier than to have a nice hot bowl of soup for lunch?

We have decided to have a mushrooms soup for a simple lunch (which is not really that simple at all). Recipe taken from Sunday Times article.

Went with mum early in the morning to the market to buy the necessary ingredients for the soup. We got assorted mushrooms, white onion and milk. Its not cheap making mushroom soup from scratch. Mushrooms by itself are quite expensive already. Also, to me, I'm not so particular on what type of mushrooms to use, so I did not really adhere to the suggested items. I just throw in whatever I liked. Mum also got leftover potato, so I just threw that in too.


INGREDIENTS 

• 800g mixed fresh mushrooms 
• 1 medium, brown skinned onion 
• 120g salted butter, divided 
• 50g flour 
• 750ml full fat milk, divided 
• 500ml chicken stock 
• salt and pepper to taste chopped chives (optional) 

METHOD
1. Prepare the mushrooms: Wipe them clean with damp paper towels. Slice off the stems or root ends, dice into roughly 1cm cubes.
2. Peel the onion, chop finely, set aside.
3. In a large frying pan, heat 70g of the butter over medium heat. When it has melted, add the mushrooms and saute 3 to 4 minutes until they give off some liquid and are succulent. Turn off the heat, set aside.
4. In a medium pot, heat the remaining 50g of butter over medium heat. When it has melted, add the onions and saute quickly for 30 seconds. Turn heat down to medium low, cover the pot and let cook 8 minutes.
5. Add flour to the pot, mix well with the onions and butter and cook over medium low heat for 3 minutes. The mixture will clump up, that is fine. Just keep breaking the lumps up with a whisk and continue cooking. 6. In the meantime, heat 250ml of the milk in a saucepan until bubbles form at the edges, or in a microwave safe jug in the microwave on a high setting for 1 minute.

7. After the flour, onion and butter mixture has cooked for 3 minutes, remove pan from heat and pour in the hot milk, whisking thoroughly to incorporate the milk into the roux mixture. Then add the remaining 500ml milk and the chicken stock, whisking to mix thoroughly.
8. Place the pot back on the stove, and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat, whisking often to prevent the soup from scorching at the bottom of the pan.
9. Add the cooked mushrooms, stir to mix well, and cook another 15 minutes on medium-low heat, stirring often. The soup will thicken up.

10. Check for seasonings – add salt if needed, and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

11. Ladle into bowls, top with chopped chives if using, and serve with warm bread.


We also bought some french bread to eat together with the soup. We bake it somemore to make it crispier before serving.
Above serves 4-6 pax.