Just ask any member of the PV Team about where they shop for beauty booty, and they’ll immediately list Watsons as one of their regular haunts. Its wealth of makeup and skincare picks that fit a wide range of budgets, plus there's always something new! We’ve already switched and saved during budget season, stripped down to gentler bath and body formulations with the Naturals line, armed ourselves against the elements with the Pure Beauty Urban Shield line, and got a head start on anti-aging with the Collagen line. But it doesn’t stop there! This veritable drugstore brand has now tapped into the J-beauty scene to bring us Target Pro by Watsons.

The Ordinary is probably the biggest breakthrough beauty brand of 2017, and I'm just one of its many fans who can’t stop adding items to my shopping cart. It is addicting! They really raised the bar for skincare with their wide range of straightforward active ingredients offered at wallet-friendly prices. If you want to get on the bandwagon but don't know where to start, fellow PV girl Kim has a list of TO must-try's. But even if you're more into makeup than skincare, The Ordinary has also been making the internet buzz about its face primers and foundations - so much so that foundations had a 25,000-person waitlist!

Just like that, the first two weeks of 2018 have already passed! We’re hoping that your year is off to a good start but just in case you need a quick pick-me-up, this week’s roundup has got a bit of everything for you. From Avon’s grandest sale in 40 years (crazy, I know!) to Kat Von D’s latest music collab, these news bits are just as exciting as the fireworks you lit for the new year. Pat McGrath’s also got a luxurious new lip product, and you can have the opportunity to make beauty your business. And that's just as well because Tom Ford Beauty is bringing in something sensual this February! 

I recently read that contrary to popular psychology, it takes about 66 days to form a new habit instead of just 21. It sounds like a long time but I find this mildly reassuring as we've already reached the half month point and I'm still struggling to stick to my resolutions! Having a support group for encouragement goes a long way to helping me stay the course, so my fellow PV girls and I decided to share our beauty goals for this year. Here's what we've decided to focus on for 2018.

Don't let the name intimidate you. While the use of acids for chemical exfoliation is best reserved for skincare geeks, there is an acid that even beginners can safely add to their regimen! Hyaluronic acid is an ingredient often found in skincare products, and it's common enough that most of us have probably tried it already. Besides, did you know that it's already inside our bodies?

Lip tint is an easy product to make, but tricky to make right. I can only count in one hand the tint formulas I actually like to wear! Most tints end up being streaky and super dry on my lips. In worst cases, they won’t even stick to my upper lip, resulting in a weird bald finish! I'm still all for tints though. I like to play tennis and recently, I've been rowing every weekend, so I'm always on the look out for something quite specific. My work-out lip product has to feel like practically nothing on my lips, wear well even when I'm working out, and keep my lips reasonably moisturized.

If you've ever watched a K-drama or seen photos of K-idols, you probably noticed how incredibly smooth and flawless their skin looks. No pores, blemishes, or uneven coloring - they're almost too perfect to be real! The glass skin trend is pretty common among Korean stars though, and this ‘’dewy skin made dewier" look has become the ultimate #skingoals for many. 

After years of worshipping at the altar of perfectly-matte, shine-free face base, I've learned to embrace my natural shine, thanks to the cult of chok-chok. This dewy, bouncy glow had all of us falling back in love with moisturizing, with some swapping out foundie faves for the ultimate KBeauty staple: the BB cream.

The world of beauty seems to have grown overnight. Being a beauty fanatic and skin care addict, I have mixed feelings about it. My first thought was, YAAASSSS finally there are so many new things to try! But a few seconds later, I realized: there are SO MANY things to try! I suddenly can’t cope with all of these new products, innovations, and, let’s face it - gimmicks.

I do understand that the beauty industry is even more competitive now. Brands are pressured to come up with standout products that can get them #trending both online and off. I personally find that there’s a very thin line separating the ingenious and the gimmicky though so here’s a rundown of what works and what doesn't, based on what I've tried so far!

Working at Project Vanity means I have to stay updated about the newest products and latest trends, and I think it's amazing that there's always more for me to learn about! Because of this constant exposure, I've become a lot meticulous about adding to my beauty stash and I feel that it's really paying off. Together with the other PV girls, we've discovered quite a few HGs in the past year! We've raved about some of them in posts here on PV and on the Facebook group but we're still so #shookt about how good these finds are so we're recapping them here together with the disappointments that landed in our trash.

Despite the abundance of heat and humidity in our country, there are people like me who worry about looking tuyot. Persistently dry or dehydrated skin cracks, folds, and doesn’t tend to smooth back out, thus making us look older than we really are. I’ve had really bad days when insufficient skincare and dry foundation formulas have made me look wrinkly and washed out. While I know that aging is inevitable, it's not fun looking twice your actual age!

Aging concerns are real for people like me who have dry and/or dehydrated skin so the Revlon Youth FX line is aimed at addressing just that.

Making resolutions for the new year means evaluating the present and figuring out how to make the good better, and the better best. That's why it seems timely that Kiehl’s has taken an old favorite - one that they claim sells at a rate of one bottle per minute - and made it more powerful than ever! The star ingredient is also now more potent and more stable.

With so many brands coming in and new product releases, 2017 was a truly exciting year for beauty. As much as we loved welcoming the likes of Tom Ford and Fenty Beauty into our shores, our wallets found relief in more affordable discoveries! Drugstore beauty isn't about cheap, forgettable formulations anymore and we're definitely expecting even better things this year. Here are ten budget beauty finds that raised the bar on drugstore beauty! All were released in the Philippines in 2017

If there’s one beauty product that changed my life in 2017, it would be chemical exfoliants! I have acids to thank for helping me get this much closer to my chok chok skin goals. My skin has never been so clear and smooth. Even my husband has gotten hooked on skincare ever since I made him try using acids!

I’ve been preaching the gospel of chemical exfoliation to anyone who’s been willing to listen, and as excited as many have been to finally get into it, there’s always this one hurdle: how do you use acids? So once and for all, let’s finally answer all those questions and get you started!

Sheet masks are like an instant best friend skincare item that’s available whenever and wherever you need them. Tired and want a quick pick-me-upper for your skin? Prepping for a big event and need of an extra boost of moisture? Just feeling the desire for some me-time and TLC for your skin? Put on a refreshing sheet mask! It’s like a spa day for your face tidily wrapped in one small packet, and it doesn’t need to be pricey. Just check out our under-100 pesos picks below!

If I can summarize my 2017 in one word, it would be courage. This is the year that the Project Vanity Team and I went out of my comfort zone (such as it were) to go for new things we had never considered before. Project Vanity is more than a blog, as I like to say - it's a community this year more than ever, with the birth of the Project Vanity Community Page on FB and regular live videos that also tie with in-store exclusives and events! 

I was a little surprised to learn that Eye of Horus is actually an indie brand. We’ve featured them extensively on the site and are always blown away by the quality of the items, so it’s easy to assume that there’s a gigantic team of chemists and researchers slaving away to perfect their powerhouse collection of eye enhancers.

But no! The secret to Eye of Horus is the hands-on mother-daughter tandem of Heather and Holly Spierings, who make it their duty to know all about the exotic and health-beneficial oils that they incorporate into the products.

Happy New Year PV Girls! We hope that you all had an amazing Christmas, and starting 2018 with nothing but love, happiness, and loads of beauty! This week’s roundup is nothing short of festive, with peeks at the exciting new developments that await us in the coming year. Riri's latest pout is on the spotlight and we're dropping the bomb on best gray hair rescuer ever (spoiler alert: it only takes 30 minutes!) And because we deserve to start the new year with a bang, it's time to treat yo'self to a bunch of shiny new additions to your stash, thanks to major deals from Sephora, Beauty Bar, and Colourpop! Don't wait 'til midnight, girls, because this beauty ball has already dropped!

I got horribly sick the week before Christmas. Weak and stuck in bed with a high fever, doing my skincare routine was simply out of the question and my skin began acting up. Pimples appeared on my forehead, nose, and chin while a scaly rash spread over my left cheek. By the time I was well enough to get into the groove again, I looked like a hot mess and didn’t have much time to fix my skin before attending various holiday parties.

As a model, Gigi Hadid basically has three places she can call home: her birthplace in Los Angeles, the fashion capital of New York, and her third home: the airplanes that take her to all her exotic work locations! Her collection with Maybelline is inspired by that supermodel lifestyle, and the Philippines is getting an Asia-first look at this ‘coast-to-coast’ makeup collection!