Asia’s premiere modelling competition is back for Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 Episode 6. The photo shoot this week was sponsored by Neutrogena with the girls having to portray one of the scents in Neutrogena’s Rain Bath Shower Gel line. Joel Lim is back behind the lens. Read on for my Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 Episode 6 review and how the girls fared in their photo shoot this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6RdEdCDHW0

It’s another studio shoot and there’s water involved so it’s par for the course for a Neutrogena-sponsored photo shoot. Having the girls constricted into a space the size of a bathtub adds a nice challenge. (I’m just hoping that the water was at least lukewarm and not ice-cold like last cycle’s shoot.)

So who among the girls floated to the top and who sank to the bottom? Here are my Top 3 and Bottom 3 photos for this week…

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Full Ranking

Sike! This week I’ve decided to comment not just on my Top and Bottom 3 but for all the girls. Check out my video rankings and then my comments on each of their photos after:

1. Nametha

She can look badass and strong in one photo and yet she can look vulnerable and soft in this one. The versatility on this girl! To think she’s one of the younger girls in this competition. I can’t rave about Nametha enough! Girl seriously slays.

2. Shikin

Shikin is bringing the fierce once again. That booty tooch is divine. I like how the flowers outline her body. She’s maybe not the look that Neutrogena is looking for as its new face (more on that later) but still an excellent photo from her.

3. Maureen

Not as strong as last week’s wow photo, but still good nonetheless. She’s serving waterbender/goddess of the sea. Looking forward to her next photo!

4. Valerie

She’s glowing in her photo. She’s even smizing, though with unclear results. The most glaring flaw here is the stiff right arm holding on to one side of the tub. Had that arm been more relaxed, this would’ve been another strong photo for Valerie.

5. Tu

Unlike her past photos, this is a very middle-of-the-road result from Tu. I do love the shape she’s making with her body, but they had to pick the photo where her face is not as strong. Without knowing that she had contact lens on, she looked afraid of being in the water. I’m also confused. No one told Tu that she was too sexy during her shoot. 🤔

6. Cindy

Did anyone else notice that Cindy’s photo is framed (and cropped) differently than the other girls? I would’ve chalked it up to Cindy’s height, but Nametha is the same height as her and Tu is taller. So what gives? As with Cindy’s past photos, I still don’t know what emotion she’s trying to evoke. Then again, it’s still the stronger of the two blue photos.

7. Clara

Is it just me, or does it seem like Clara really lost her spark after the makeover? She’s still funny af when she’s her usual clueless self, but in her photos she seems to have lost all energy. I’m still hoping that there’s still some fire left in her to be better next shoot.

8. Veronika

It’s another case of the stiff jaw for Veronika, though not as severe as last week’s. Her right hand looks like it’s keeping her right leg in place; it just looks uncomfortable. This is still better than her photo last week, but she needs to keep up the pace with the other girls if she wants to continue in the competition.

9. Dorothy

Dorothy has been yoyo-ing in the rankings for the past few weeks. Whoever selects her photo seems to always pick her worst photo whenever he/she has the chance. Therefore, Dorothy needs to bring it in all of her shots, like she did in last week’s Maybelline shoot.

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Episode 6 Review

While last episode was pretty uneventful for the most part, this episode gave us a lot to unpack. The show went full-on reality show in Episode 6.

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The Cheating “Incident”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMPggvMaZpQ

Why would they even have wi-fi in the first place? Is this just a ploy to tempt the girls into breaking the rules? These are all adult girls, not little kids being tempted to take cookies from a cookie jar!

How would Nametha know the wi-fi password? Who did she get said password from?Did the wi-fi not have a password?Or maybe, the unsecured wifi was from a neighbor that doesn’t know how to set the password? (If yes, then that’s probably why all those spoilers get leaked so easily. 😂) Whose phone did she use? If she used her own phone, why does she still have it? I thought any and all mobile devices were “confiscated” on these reality shows?

So many questions. But all answers point to this: “It’s a reality show. Deal with it.” The real question that we all need to ask is “Whose drama will be featured next?” 🙄

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The “Shock” Factor aka Nametha vs. The People of AsNTM

Using the wifi was part of the contract the girls signed at the beginning of the competition. Legally, we already knew that Nametha would be eliminated. Cindy Bishops’s “snap election” added a pinch of drama in the situation. She coincidentally only asked Dorothy, Nametha’s closest friend in the model house how Nametha should be punished. Naturally, Dorothy would answer based on the contract. “She should be eliminated.”

After the deliberation, Nametha was called 2nd to Cindy but if you watched the 2015 Miss Universe and the 2016 Academy Awards, you’d know that Nametha was a goner. I know it’s to build up more drama, but it’s pretty cruel how they prolonged Nametha’s agony. How Nametha handled the forced elimination showed how she is great as a person in spite of her mistakes.

 

The Judges’ “Deliberation”

A commenter pointed out an anomaly in the judges’ scores for a certain contestant. So I decided to investigate and rewind the tapes. (Figuratively, of course. Who still uses tapes? Unless your name is Hannah Baker. Or Peter Quill.)

I’ve decided to focus on 3 girls’ scores:

• Dorothy, who has already won once but always finds herself in or near the bottom the week after,
• Cindy, who got 2 FCOs already, and
• Shikin, who hasn’t won FCO yet, as this experiment’s control

And for the judges, I’ve decided to focus on two:

• Yu Tsai, whose scores actually prompted this “investigation,” and
• Cindy Bishop who is the constant presence in the judging panel

Moreover, as an added constraint, we’re only looking at photo shoots where none of the girls are in the bottom (because the judges’ scores are not shown if a girl is in the Bottom 2) and both judges are present, i.e. from Episode 2’s Colgate shoot to the latest.

Let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?

Colgate Optic White

This was the first episode where Cindy and Yu Tsai were both present. There were 4 judges in total, including Cara and guest Lukkade.

	Cindy	Yu Tsai	Judges’ Total	COO
Cindy	9.0	9.0	36.0	#2
Dorothy	10.0	6.5	45.5	#1
Shikin	7.5	6.0	24.5	#8

Double Denim/Makeover

This was the makeover shoot and the call out order was purely based on the panel scores for their photos. Yu Tsai was present at this shoot. There were 3 judges, including guest Ling Tan.

	Cindy	Yu Tsai	Judges’ Total	COO
Cindy	9.0	10.0	29.0	#1
Dorothy	8.5	6.5	23.0	#8
Shikin	8.0	8.0	25.0	#3

Maybelline

I skipped the group shoot in the previous episode because Dorothy was in the bottom 2. For this episode, there were 4 judges including Cara and guest Nigel Stanislaus.

	Cindy	Yu Tsai	Judges’ Total	COO
Cindy	7.0	6.5	26.5	#7
Dorothy	8.8	6.5	32.0	#4
Shikin	8.0	8.5	33.3	#2

A Pattern Emerges?

So I’m pretty sure you’ve seen a pattern here: Yu Tsai has been giving Dorothy a constant score of 6.5, at least from these 3 episodes. There’s no way to know right now if he gave an even lower score for the two times Dorothy was in the bottom. He has given a lower score for other girls (see Shikin’s 6.0 score for the Colgate shoot.) But among Dorothy’s judges’ scores, she always got the least from Yu Tsai. And it’s not like Yu Tsai doesn’t give positive comments to Dorothy’s performances in some weeks, but his scores don’t reflect it. I’ll leave it up to you readers to decide what that means. 🤔

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Neutrogena’s “Type”

After Cycle 3 concluded, Aimee Cheng-Bradshaw from that cycle was chosen as their ambassador for Singapore. Since then, Neutrogena has sponsored a photo shoot on the show, with the prize of being the new face of Neutrogena Singapore. Aimee has been a guest on the Neutrogena episode since last cycle. Sang-in Kim won that prize last cycle for their Splash line. Now Cindy Chen won it for their Rain Bath Shower Gel line.

I totally understand their wanting to be on-brand especially with their choice of ambassador. No wonder the judges were pushing Cindy so hard during her shoot. She seems to be the only one of the remaining girls who fits the bill. I’ll also leave it up to you readers to decipher. 🤔

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What do you think of Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 Episode 6? Any particular thoughts on the episode, specifically about Nametha’s shock elimination? How would you rank the girls’ Neutrogena photos? Any other conspiracy theories to add about the show? Sound off in the comments below.

Also, don’t forget to vote for your favorite girl in the poll in the recap post. Poll closes right before Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 Episode 7 on Wednesday, 9 p.m. on Star World.

The Girl Who Has A Dirty Little Secret: Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 Episode 6 Recap