Beauty-mad Singapore

In a country where beauty is big business and looking good is something of a national obsession, Singapore's beauty providers are going to the extremes to satisfy their customers. From Reuters:

At Fish Reflexology, clients' feet are exfoliated by tiny fish that nibble off dead skin -- a method used in Turkey for decades to treat diseases. The treatment is also available in some areas of China and Japan.

The spa opened in December on Singapore's Sentosa island and more than 2,000 customers have fed their feet to the fish...

Another popular beauty treatment is eyebrow embroidery, an industry the local Straits Times newspaper estimated to be worth 5 million Singapore dollars ($3.25 million) a year.

It entails plucking out your natural brows and then drawing strands of hair back using a pen-like device that injects ink under the skin. The result, patrons say, looks more natural than a tattoo and better than Mother Nature.

And if that sounds painful, several hair-removal salons in Singapore offer services for men including "boyzilians" -- the male equivalent of the "Brazilian", where almost all the hair is removed from the pubic area using strips daubed in warm wax.

Related: Beware of the pedicure