I *Heart* Watsons

Photo of Watsons at the ground floor of SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City.

You don't need me to tell you that Watsons is the best store in Southeast Asia for drugstore makeup and personal-care stuff. What you will find here is a virtual bounty of treasures: a great selection of local and global cosmetic brands, plus nutritional supplements (glutathione, anyone?) and other assorted drugstore-type merch.

What you do need to know about Watsons, however, is this: They've actually gotten a head start on Pond's Big Beauty Sale.

Yes, my dear readers in the Philippines (and those of you who probably would know people in the Philippines besides yours truly), you can now get Pond's skincare for as low as 70% off! And Watsons just got ahead of the bandwagon by offering Pond's on sale as early as August 9 - less than a week before the official launch on August 15.

Now there's an affordable Pond's product for every need, whether you're looking for "whiteners" to take care of hyperpigmentation on Asian skin, or some oil-controlling products to take care of acne and shiny faces.

The best offerings in this sale, though, are the super-affordable prices for the Pond's Age Miracle line of products, which have been - no joke! - featured recently on The Tyra Banks Show.

I'm currently testing both the Daily Resurfacing SPF15 day cream (featured above) and the Overnight Treatment - both of which are rich and buttery, and really nice for my AC-parched skin. Two jars of cream cost me PhP725 - roughly US$14, which is what I usually pay for just one bottle of moisturizer at Wal-Mart. I sometimes mix the Overnight Treatment with - shhh! - a bit of Pond's whitening cream, which I purchased as a tiny sachet from the local supermarket to help me even out the sun damage and age spots on my face.

(Fine, so I'm using a "whitening" cream, after years of swearing up and down that I'm too proud to use one. In my defense, it has niacinamide and no hydroquinone, so I use this more as a night serum. More on the "whitening" issue in another post.)

Anyhow, if you haven't tried any Pond's products yet, now's a good time to do so! Get thee to the nearest Watsons (or PCX, or Rustan's, or SM, wherever - check ponds.com.ph for details on participating merchants and products) and start saving up.