Review: Ponds Flawless White Blemish Cream

I gotta be honest. The word blemish is not one of the words I deal with as much as I do with say, pimples, whiteheads, or breakouts. In fact, I don't think I ever really had much discolorations, or blemishes, as they are also called, probably because I've been religiously using SPF since I discovered it at the age of 17.

But as I've learned, SPF, at least plain ones, are never really enough. If, like me, you've been religiously buying and applying SPF on the face and body, you'd notice the terms UVA/UVB, sometimes together, sometimes just one of them appears on the bottle.

When I attended the launch of the Ponds Facial Wash with Activated Carbon, I learned that SPF UVA and UVB serve two different purposes. The acronym UV simply stands for ' Ultra Violet,' and A and B are the two of the three kinds of rays that we need to protect our skin from.

• UVA - are sun rays that affect the second layer of our skin, called dermis. UVA rays are the same strength all year round, unlike UVB, which is the stronger of the two. This means that even if the sun is not burning your skin, your dermis is still suffering from radiation.

• UVB, on the other hand, affects our epidermis, or outer skin. These rays are responsible for your 'tan,' thus showing off any color change when you spend a day out in the sun.

IMO, regardless of any discoloration or lack thereof, with the sun giving off more harmful rays every day, applying SPF has become a must. To me, it has become so much of a habit that if I'm out and I'm not wearing any sunblock or UV cream, I feel naked. I have been using Neutrogena's Ultra Sheer SPF 30 for the past two years and just recently, Pond's Flawless White Blemish Cream overtook my old SPF for a weaker-in-SPF model but more multi-tasking.

One may ask: Why did you trade reasonably-sounding SPF 30 for SPF 15?

Since these days have been less sunny {most of the time, anyway}, I figured I didn't exactly need so much SPF. I learned from my dad and from that Ponds launch that SPF {Sun Protection Factor} doesn't pertain to the strength of the product, rather to how long it can shield your skin.

Our bestfriend Wikipedia defines SPF as:

The sun protection factor of a sunscreen is a laboratory measure of the effectiveness of sunscreen — the higher the SPF, the more protection a sunscreen offers against UV-B (the ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburn).

The SPF is the amount of UV radiation required to cause sunburn on skin with the sunscreen on, relative to the amount required without the sunscreen. So, wearing a sunscreen with SPF 50, your skin will not burn until it has been exposed to 50 times the amount of solar energy that would normally cause it to burn. The amount of solar energy you are exposed to depends not only on the amount of time you spend in the sun, but also the time of day. This is because, during early morning and late afternoon, the sun's radiation must pass through more of the Earth's atmosphere before it gets to you.

In retrospect, since I don't expose myself too much to the sun, save for those several minutes when I descend from my apartment going to our parking lot or when I hail a cab, there isn't really much interaction between me and the sun, so SPF 15 should do fine. Besides, I noticed that as the SPF rating goes higher so does its sticky factor. I once mistakenly applied SPF 70 on my face and by noon my face was a yucky white mess.

The Good:

I have decided to replace my old sunblock with this for a month now. I have not much experience with Ponds cream products, I find myself limited to their facial wash products and cold cream, but this is a pretty excellent bottle of awesomeness.

• The consistency is perfect. You know when the product is too watery and you'd doubt if it ever works given the pitiful watery state of it? It wasn't like that with this at all. It ain't too thick, either, that you'd wonder if you mistakenly slapped on cake batter instead of your sunblock cream. This blemish cream smoothly glides through my face after applying my day cream every single morning.
• The scent makes me feel giddy every single time. I don't know if my words will do justice to its scent, which is not really exquisite but truly clean, crisp, simple, girly, dainty, feminine -- pretty much everything I wanted to be but if you know me in person, I'm not any of those {except clean!} so the scent is kind of aspirational to me. 
• Minimal white cast. One sad fact about sunblock is that the white cast is never really going to go away so grin and bear it. I just noticed though that with this, there seems to be minimal white cast {much like the other sunblock creams I used in the past} or maybe I'm just too diligent with applying makeup that it gets all covered? Hmm?
• So far, so good. No blemishes in sight, no breakouts, no allergies, no drying up, no why is my skin so gaspang moments. 
• As good as Teflon. It may not have a watery consistency, but truly, this Ponds Blemish Cream do not stick at all. At all. By sticky, I mean the ones that don't seem to be absorbed by the skin. I do not have a hard time mixing it with my current and possibly HG favorite liquid foundation and shu uemura finishing powder. The three of them, together with the many, many products I slap on my face every single day works wonders of wonder.
• Blemish-free. Just like all the sunblock creams I have tried, this one keeps the blemishes at bay.
• Reasonably-priced. Yahoo! Shopping says that one of the things a woman needs to save on {as opposed to splurging} is SPF. "Women tend to not be vigilant about sunscreen during times in which they are indirectly exposed to the sun," says surgeon Patricia Wexler. In this light, we all need SPF every single day {pun not intended} we are out there under the sun. Would it be practical to splurge on expensive SPF when there are ones in the market {like this one that goes for Php 109 a pop} that actually work but doesn't cost a fortune? 

The Bad:

•  Can you believe that because I had no bad things to say about this product that I actually had to google it because, well, that's my job here, right? To say if there's anything one should be warned of with this product? I've racked my brains pretty hard and this review has been two weeks in the making, so one can guarantee I've had plenty of time to test it. So, NO, there isn't anything bad to say about this product. I did not break out, or I did not think it is sticky, or oily. But as any other beauty blogger, usage of any product read from a blog, do take caution before using it.

Overall Recommendation:

This is a great product if you're tired of having sun-induced blemishes, if you're looking for a cream that's not laden with too much SPF and whitening, too. Whatever you decide, don't forget to use products with SPF.

Have you tried this product? What do you think? Let me know!