Anastasia Beverly Hills Salon Malaysia Eyebrow Treatment Review

Hi guys, welcome back to my blog! Today I'll be sharing about my Anastasia Beverly Hills Eyebrow Treatment experience.

Anastasia Beverly Hills in Malaysia?! Yup you saw that right, I went for an eyebrow treatment with ABH last Saturday. ABH products are currently not available anywhere in Malaysia aside from ABH's international website, so I was quite surprised to hear that they had any services at all here.

Its actually a bit of a story, and I don't have lots of pictures aside from those I can find online, so this post will be more of a "story-time" kind of review hahaha.

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ABH has a flagship salon open in their home of Beverly Hills, and they offer services such as eyebrow treatments, waxing, facials, and makeup application.

Aside from their Beverly Hills salon, they have several others in Japan. Apparently, they're super popular in Japan as they have a total of 27 salons spread all throughout the country (Hokkaido, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka, Hyogo, Hiroshima & Fukuoka). The salons look as luxurious & extravagant (if not more) than the Beverly Hills one.

I think ABH Japan is planning to expand their salon services in Malaysia, as the event I went to was actually a market/consumer research thing. It was basically a free trial of their services in exchange for consumer info + feedback on the whole experience.

The free trial was held in the Westin Hotel in Bukit Bintang, and the ABH Japan staff set up the Malaya rooms EXACTLY like how their salon setup looks like (sans rose wall). The counter was there, the lounge was there and the salons/private rooms were there as well. I kinda regret not taking pictures of the space, because I thought...they might not like it since it was a private/research event. But now looking back at it I should have just stolen a few shots hahaha. Here's some shots of how the Japanese salons look like, and it looks very similar to how the setup was that day.

My friend Bo also went for the treatment, and she managed to get some shots with the coordinators.

ABH brought their makeup artists/staff straight from Japan, so they were accompanied with translators. When I looked them up later I saw that they literally came in the uniform that they would have worn should it have been in Japan, so the experience literally was as authentic as it could be.

The artist I got was Shu, and she was super friendly! Even with the language barrier we managed to talk and even make jokes.

Anyhoo, about the procedure itself. We all know eyebrows are an important part of the face. Eyebrows are actually said to determine 80% of our facial expressions, so it's important to have the right shape to accentuate & show what emotion we're displaying.

Eyebrows determine the person’s facial impression because eyebrows grow on a bone called the eyebrow arch, surrounded by facial muscles. As eyebrows move with facial muscles, when the eyebrows are not positioned appropriately in accordance with the bone and facial muscles, the facial impression will fail to reflect the person’s real emotion.

If you pluck, cut or shave your brows (like I do) to create an ideal image without taking your bone and muscle structure into account, you will not achieve the beautiful facial expression you intended to create. As someone with super thick brows that look angry, I always pluck my brows so that they look straight and emotionless. Although I think this looks good on me, the downside of straight brows is that when I smile, my brows remain straight and don't really express much emotion.

The entire eyebrow treatment comes in 5 steps:

1. Counseling

The artist will look at your brows, muscles and bone structure and tell you more about your brows, like how arched they are, if they're imbalanced, etc. I personally know that my right eyebrow area looks more raised because of muscle, and without telling the artist she immediately noticed it. She said that this can easily be balanced out by adjusting the shape of each brow according to the muscles + bones.

2. Measurement of 3 points

Based on the golden ratio, ABH created a method where they decide three points of eyebrow (start, arch & tail) based on your bones + muscle.

3. Choosing of form

This part, the artist will ask you what sort of look you prefer. As I said previously, I prefer straight brows, so I told her I would like straight, Korean idol looking brows.

4. Depilate unwanted hair

First, she removed my makeup and mapped out the shape of my new brows with a pomade. After showing me the shape and confirming if I liked it, she used warm wax to strip the unwanted hair that was outside of the shape she had drawn on. This was super comfortable and not painful at all.

After waxing, she removed the pomade and showed me how my new brows looked like without makeup. I liked it and I think it gives me a natural, calm look.

5. Complete Perfect Arch

After removing unwanted hair, she then proceeded to do my brow makeup (aka show me how to fill in empty spots + how to naturally draw my brows). The thing I liked about this is that it is their standard to do only one brow, and you're supposed to do the other. It was really informational and easy to understand. She used a light & dark eyebrow powder to lightly shape the brow, a thin eyebrow pencil to define the hairs + a brow gel to set them in place.

You can come to the treatment without makeup, but I think coming to the treatment with makeup will really help you see the difference of how you usually draw your brows + how they look like after.

Overall, I think the whole process was very informational + good, especially for makeup beginners who do not know how to draw their brows. I usually only use either a pencil or a powder and fully fill in my brows, but after the session, I know understand how to use several products to create realistic looking natural brows.

Here's what my brows looked like when I came in and what they looked like after the treatment:

So much neater and natural right! I definitely like my straight eyebrows, and at first I thought "these new brows are so arched!". But after a while, I felt like these new brows made me look happier and more expressive.

Me with Shu & the translator.

The next day I tried the new brow style out for The Butterfly Project's Unicorn Party, and I think I looked better compared to last year's pictures. My expression was more visible + I just overall didn't look like a stone-faced bitch hahaha.

Last year's party

This year's party

As a token of appreciation, ABH gave us all a kit with some of the products used on us during the treatment.

It was really nice of them, and I later found out that it was an almost complete Brow Kit which was worth USD65. Thanks again ABH! 

I looked up how much the products would be worth from their Japanese website as well, and the 4 things we got totalled to JPY13900 (a lil'over RM500). Definitely expensive, so again, thanks ABH for the goodies!

After the treatment there was a questionnaire asking how much we thought the service cost and if it was worth it if it was worth RM178. To be honest, I told them RM178 was a bit too steep for counselling + treatment + demo. I searched up how much it costs in Japan and found that a first visit costs JPY 4,800 (~RM173) and a return visit costs JPY4,300 (~RM155).

To be honest, I think it's a bit steep, and it's definitely a splurge. If they do launch in Malaysia with that price, I think the first time price is worth it for people who totally do not know how to do their brows + have no knowledge of makeup. It would be even worth it if after the treatment you could get sample or trial sizes of the products used, because from their JP website, there's no mention of getting anything after the treatment. Branding is definitely what makes the treatment expensive, but if they were to launch in Malaysia I think they would be more popular if they lowered their price or added freebies.

As always, thank you guys so much for dropping by my blog! I hope you guys liked this blog post and found it informative & helpful. I'll see y'all in the next one!