Facial Review: New York Skin Solutions, Mines Shopping Mall

I received a FREE voucher in my Astroview magazine for a full 3 hours facial so I decided to go. Once there, I was asked to fill a long form and given a LONG consultation.

They used this machine to scan my skin surface and beneath to see what are my skin problems, apparently I have lots of problems but mainly is lack of collagen. From the machine, if my skin has healthy collagen, it will be shown as triangular shapes, but without collagen means it’s just a blur. After the consultation, then only the consultant recommended the type of facial I needed to do which is well of coz, collagen facial. She also asked to see my credit card, with the catch that if I just show her my credit card, I will be given an on the spot free facial without charge. So I just showed her, note that this is supposed to be a catch later.

Then I was ushered to a room for my facial therapy. Unlike other facial saloons I’ve been, at New York, I realise there is no place to put your bags and they also don’t ask you to change your shoes. So I just wear my shoes into the room and put my bag on the floor. The facial experience itself was great. The therapist even showed me the difference of the collagen treatment by doing one side of my face first. There was really a physical difference. Everything was cool and went well. I loved the minty fresh Mask after the extraction as it really cooled down my skin and the redness was all gone after the mask, save for a few parts.

The problem starts after the facial. I was again led to the consultation room and the consultant came and scanned my face again showing me which part has improved and which part is still a major problem. After that she started writing down the pricing for a package she was recommending without asking me if I was even interested. She quoted a package costing a whooping RM7000. I wanted to cough blood. I was actually not interested to sign up any package at all, I was there just to redeem a FREE facial. However, the consultant was very pushy, she continued to lower the price of the package from 24 sessions to 12 sessions to 10 sessions to 5 sessions even down to 3 sessions to get me to sign up to which I kept telling her : No I’m not interested. I told her I wanted her to close account as I needed to rush off to pump milk already. She wouldn’t allow me to leave the room and told me I could just do it in one of their rooms. I told her it was okay as the new baby room is just next to the outlet but she kept insisting. After that she left the room I thought to close the account, but the supervisor came in instead.

The supervisor went all aggressive on me. She told me how terrible my skin was and how if I don’t do anything now it will get worse. She also claimed there was no other facial places as good as New York and only their treatment can cure my skin problems. She said they are the only place that uses the scan machine which I knew is not true as previously I just went to another facial place that had one too. Finally when I told her I just didn’t want to sign a package, she even demanded why, asking probing questions like, is it you can’t afford it, etc. It was true for sure that I couldn’t afford a RM7000 facial package, even my Gold card doesn’t have that much credit. She talked about credit card installments as well (remember when they asked me to show them my card so now they can target on that?). Finally I got fed up and I told her if she continued to be pushy I will never come to this place again even if I had considered it in the first place. She denied that she was being pushy and said she just wanted to help me with my problems (getting good skin and being in debt is not exactly my idea of a problem solved). When I still insisted I needed to go and asked her to just close the account, she threatened me! Can you believe it, she actually said, since I did my facial once with them and didn’t continue with their products or their facial, by tomorrow my skin will have terrible breakouts. I was like what? When did you say the breakout will appear. She remained so sure of herself, and said yes by tomorrow. I just gave her a smile and said ok, we’ll just see.

So I signed the closing documents and left the place. I left the place not rejuvenated by a supposed great facial experience, but I left the place with a bad taste and the determination never ever to go there ever ever again. Not only did the staffs not treat me like a potential customer, they treated me like a cheap customer, like a beggar there using a free service. Yes I went there with a free coupon but all customers are potential customers and should be given the same and best treatment if they want to see their business go somewhere. Yesterday, I went to another facial place, Kunzense (review next) and the experience was 100% different from this. I was quite disappointed with New York Skin Solutions as it is a well known brand.

I forgot to mention that the supervisor also hid the free sample kit from me until I asked her for it. Even when giving it to me, she gave it to me with an unhappy face and told me that the moisturizer is not suitable for me anyways, that I should just give it away. Then today I read this blog written in 2008 and that was exactly the same tactic they used. I couldn’t believe a business could have lasted this long with an evil tactic like this.