Skin Deep Beauty

One of the biggest malls in Mumbai is the Nirmal Lifestyle Mall in an area called Mulund, which is a slightly 'downmarket' area as compared to the rest of Mumbai. It is not surprising to find Mumbaikers born in the city, who have never been to Mulund!

Me and my good friend Sharan reached the mall towards the afternoon, after having traveled for an hour from Santacruz by auto. Being a Saturday, the traffic was not that bad. We have been hearing a lot about the mall and so we had great expectations from it. But sadly, it didn't really live up to its hype. Its huge, no doubt about it and it is populated by all your typical mall brands. But we were really disappointed by the lack of continuity in the shopping experience the mall offers. There is this huge domed area in the middle of the mall where shoppers can walk around, check out live promos, relax or simply look at people move by. While the dome protects shoppers from the rains and the sun, lack of ventilation can make it stuffy and the sheer size of the area means that if you plan to install central cooling there, it will require a nuclear power station :-). And yea, the total lack of eye candy in the crowd that throngs there is appalling.

For lack of anything better to do, we headed for the Pond's Skin Clinic stall in that area, which was offering free analysis of your skin as well as promoting their latest range of Age Miracle products. We were the only men in the line of middle aged women waiting patiently for their turn and it was quite interesting to see the shocked expressions on their faces. But we were quite impressed with the professionalism of the experts in the clinic. They didn't even bat an eyelid on seeing us. They asked us to fill out a form and I decided to test their 'scientific' methods and their result analysis. I lied to them that I was 23.

The skin experts explained to us how exposure to the elements and not using their products lead to aging of the skin. We were then introduced to terms like age lines, open pores, oily dermis layer, dark eye circles and age spots. So much learning within a span of 5 minutes, it was mind blowing. To drive home this fact, our UV mug shots were taken which accentuates all the blemishes in your skin. Trust me, it is not pretty. Sample the picture below.


After that an analysis of the mug shots was done. Surprisingly, I managed to clear most tests as 'good' which meant that I had the skin of a 23 year old guy ;-). I just needed to do something about the dark circles around my eyes for which I was recommended a particular product from their line. I was shocked to know that their products cost anything from 200 to 600 Rs. for a small pack!! Ladies, you really have costly needs.

Complimentary services include an instant photo taken by a professional in front of the Pond's backdrop.


Post photo shoot, we barely managed to step outside their stall when a shitty thing happened. Quite literally. And straight on my head that too!