About Blackmores 

If you’ve been to Parkway Parade since April this year, you might have noticed a new storefront. Blackmores, one of Australia’s leading brands in natural healthcare, chose Parkway Parade as the location to launch its flagship store – the first in Singapore. 

You might have heard of Blackmores before. Blackmores is a health supplements company that has had its products on Singapore shelves for almost 30 years. Singaporeans recognise and trust the brand so much that it was named a Top Brand by consumers in Influential Brands’ Health Supplements category in a survey done this year.

Maurice Blackmore, the founder of Blackmores, had specific principles about healthcare – he believed that health should be worked for at all times, and not only when one is sick. He espoused certain truths about healthcare – that one should get sufficient exercise and have a good diet, and never to be complacent about your health. He saw the body as a holistic entity, realizing that the functioning and malfunctioning of certain parts of your body affected the “system” as a whole. In short, Maurice Blackmore was a father of naturopathy and Blackmores was founded on these principles.

Naturopathy takes a different spin on what healthcare entails. While modern medicine has in place a system of seeing the doctor when one is ill, naturopathy believes in proactively maintaining your health, seeing the “doctor” (naturopath) even if one is healthy, in order to see if there’s any aspect of his life he is neglecting.

In line with the opening of the flagship store at Parkway Parade, Blackmores brings in a team of healthcare experts who are available to offer responsible advice on natural healthcare. Miss Chua Kay Tse is one of these experts, and I was glad to have the opportunity to meet with her to find out what naturopathy is and what changes I can make to improve my health.

Iridology

Kay Tse is a practitioner of iridology, a field that involves studying one’s eyes to determine a person’s disposition for certain diseases. Iridology practitioners are able to tell, with a degree of accuracy, your past, present, and future health afflictions. Kay Tse has an extensive background in both Iridology and Holistic Nutrition, giving her a comprehensive understanding of iridology. 

She used an iriscope to take a picture of my irises, which she looked over with me in conjunction with a Jensen Chart. The Jensen Chart shows sections of your eyes that purportedly correlates with more than a hundred sections of your body, including internal organs like kidneys and lungs and external organs like skin and hands. 

Kay Tse was keen to stress that iridology is best served as an assessment tool to suggest potential ailments if precaution to one’s health is not taken and rather than a diagnostic tool. 

The Consultation

Kay Tse’s expertise in iridology was evident as she navigated the Jensen Chart effortlessly, exhibiting the advantages an experienced naturopath has. She had extensive questions regarding my family history, health history as a child, and current habits, guided by some distinguishing markings in my irises – her questions were almost as comprehensive as any other doctor’s!

I realized through her line of questioning that naturopathy’s advantage over Western medicine is the holistic approach it takes. While Western medicine seeks to treat the symptoms (i.e. to bring down a fever), naturopathy tries to get to the root of the illness.

An example was Kay Tse’s explanation of my lack of issues with bowel movement, considering my fiber intake deficiency – my daily morning coffee acts as a slight laxative! Despite the symptom already being “fixed”, I was advised to reduce my caffeine intake and increase my fiber intake, enabling my body do its work naturally. 

It is heartening to see that the recommendations to suit your Dietary and Lifestyle needs, as well as recommended supplements to complement your way of life are tailored for you and provided at the end of every Blackmores’ naturopathic and iridology consultation.

The Advice

The session with Kay Tse concluded with a Blackmores’ proprietary checklist of health recommendations. Having a clear picture of how you live, she then goes through areas in your diet and lifestyle where improvements can be made.

I realize this was the hardest part of the consultation for me, and will be for many others. It takes humility to sit down and listen to someone, anyone to tell you that you’re living your life wrongly. The advice dispensed is valuable nonetheless, with specific pieces of advice you can implement. From altering your diet to methods of improving blood circulation, Kay Tse has advice that will enrich your body’s state.

Supplements are also recommended, with the recognition that a balanced diet is hard to achieve in a busy society like ours – we miss out on essential nutrients whether by accident or choice. 

Conclusion

Naturopathy offers a fascinating take on health, and is a perspective we should consider. If you’re interested in health or have a niggling concern that your friendly neighborhood doctor doesn’t seem to address, you could do worse than make an appointment with Blackmores to see a naturopath. 

You can call Blackmores at 6908 1314 to make an appointment with a naturopath. Each consultation is $50 and can be redeemable against products at the flagship store. You can check out their website here.

About Blackmores

Blackmores, Australia’s leading natural health brand, improves peoples’ lives by delivering the world’s best natural health solutions. Blackmores achieves this by translating over 80 years of heritage and knowledge into innovative, quality branded healthcare solutions that work. High quality products and reliable health adviser services are among the many reasons Blackmores is a trusted name in natural health. Consumers can contact the Blackmores Advisory Service via phone at 62253933 from Monday to Friday at 9am to 5pm or email healthadvisory@blackmores.com.sg.

About Influential Brands

Influential Brands is a consumer insight driven awards programme which provides a platform for brands to celebrate their achievement; for consumers, businesses and stakeholders to recognise the brands’ efforts in arriving where they are today. The study conducted by Influential Brands is purely consumer driven and the Top Brands are selected by consumers through their perception and preference, demonstrating the level of impact and influence of the brands in each consumer’s life.

Influential Brands seeks to identify consumer preferences, their behaviours, values and to understand how the ever-changing environment affects consumer experience in the purchase journey. The programme is tailored to enrich the brands’ relationship with their consumers through ongoing meaningful conversations and engagement.

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This post is part of Influential Brands 2014, where we highlight the most influential brands in Singapore.