Celebfest offers good spread of products and services for Raya prep

Party service company Snap created this balloon sculpture to celebrate Celebfest. Five of its services were showcased at the event: balloon sculpting, face painting, caricature creation, Arabic calligraphy at S$10 per service, with discounts for multiple services. The company also offers corporate bonding services.

Celebfest Ramadhan edition, which runs till 18 June at Suntec Singapore, offers everything that's needed to celebrate Raya (Eid). Stalls showcased festive clothing, home decor and Raya goodies in addition to street food and henna art services. In keeping with the name, there were also celebrities at various booths.

Here's a short walkthrough of the event, in pictures:

This year's event was in aid of the Tabung Amal Aidilfitri (tAA) Trust fund. TAA has become a household name synonymous with the spirit of giving during Ramadhan. The non-profit organisation focuses on collecting donations from the public to be disbursed to those who are in need during Ramadhan. Many of TAA's beneficiaries use the cash received to buy food and clothes in preparation for Hari Raya Aidilfitri (Eid al Fitr).

The Landmark restaurant in the Village Hotel Bugis along Victoria Street, is open as an event venue. The restaurant is offering iftar this Ramadhan featuring Asian, Western, Mediterranean and Indian dishes in a buffet from 6.30 to 10.30pm. Prayer rooms for the maghrib prayer are available. Adults cost S$35++ from Monday to Thursday and S$40++ from Friday to Sunday respectively while children aged three to seven cost S$15++ daily. Call +65 6299 7786 for reservations.

The Swing Muslim Lifestyle Store showcased gifts and accessories for the home.

Suleeya offered modest clothing plus an eclectic collection of knick knacks and home decor products. Many of the stalls accept Nets, which is generally rare for events of this nature elsewhere, but this stall also takes payments via Paylah.

IN LOVE x TNS is the ladies' arm for Thenumberseventeen, a menswear retailer. The sweet pastel colours and opulent fabrics for this stall was a departure from the general fashion landscape, which tended towards black or jewel tones and lighter fabrics.

Imanhood from Malaysia sold cute onesies for babies and tiny tees for toddlers.

Mozaic Singapore specialises in modest wear that works as both daily and festive wear.

The Warisan collection by Adrianna Yariqa for men, women and children is inspired by traditional Malay clothing. It deploys stripes to give the illusion of height to the wearer.

Whimsical childrens' clothing from Red Niraz Hijab Style with matching outfits for moms. Red Niraz Hijab Style teamed up with Maryam's Closetz to exhibit at Celebfest this year.

Made to measure clothing requests are accepted at Karimah ADesign. The stall featured textured fabrics. Hashtags: #kurta, #pelikat , #songket, #raya2017

HiqbaSG, at its first-ever Celebfest, offered cosmetics and bukhoor. Its oud sugar scrub seems especially popular. Hashtags #supportlocalSG, #HiqbaSG. Watch a video about how its rosewater and hydrating cream can be used to remove makeup.

Exotic Skins creates bags of all kinds. Pictured is one with sequinned applique on it.

Hijra Timepiece has created timepieces which run in an anticlockwise direction. The watch faces also feature numerals in Arabic script. The reason for this, the company said, is because circumambulation around the Ka'abah (طَوَاف, tawaf) is anticlockwise, and various systems of nature travel in anticlockwise fashion, including the rotation of the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the sun and blood in the heart. Prices start form S$65 and go up to over S$300. New collections are created regularly. Editor's comment: The movement for planets is clockwise or anticlockwise depending on whether a viewer is considering the movement from the north pole or the south pole; it is arbitrary. Blood flow in the heart moves in a clockwise direction in some parts of the heart, and in an anticlockwise direction in others.

Butter Boo:Eh at S$5 received a lot of interest.

A Bosnian deli in Singapore! Cejf Bosnian Deli - normally a catering service - was selling S$7 palm-sized pastries, called burek, which contained a combination of beef, cheese, potato or spinach. There was also a chocolate version. 

Bedouin brand Syrian sweets from the Malaysian restaurant of the same name on sale. 

Rainbow bagels were very popular at the Geylang bazaar this year. 

Layered drinks and those which change colour are popular this year. Mr Tiga Layer offered beverages in different flavours with colours at the bottom that shaded to clear at the top.

This stall sold Ener Al Kurma food supplements, which are  made from ajwah dates, and was targeting the Chinese market. It even offered a QR code direct to its Wechat account. MC-Ocean, which offers Ener Al Kurma products, appears to use a franchise model so might not be the  stallholder. Read the Suroor Asia blog post about the benefits of dates, including ajwah dates.

Snacks sold at this stall began from S$2.

Henna art services were common. Nana Henna Design offered white, black and natural (reddish) henna.

The Black Tie Barbershop was charging S$28 per haircut, plus discounted pomades. The average haircut cost more at the company's physical shop in Jurong West. For each haircut at Celebfest the company donated S$3 to the Global Ehsan Relief for Syrian, Somali and Rohingya beneficiaries.

The M.A.S.H Collection is a beauty-retail concept which offers beauty categories including skincare, makeup, body and men’s grooming. Different brands under the collection are variously halal, natural or vegan.

Note Cosmetics have a halal certificate from Turkey. Celebrity makeup artist Nurul Shukor graced the booth and personally chose lip and concealer colours for me. Artist to celebrities and royalty, kak Nurul said that lipstick is a must even if nothing else is worn on the face and that a layer of concealer on the lips before applying lipstick makes lipstick colours more saturated and longer-lasting.

Interested?

Celebfest closes at 10pm on 18 June.