HOW TO SHRINK LARGE PORES?

First of all, it’s not how you make larger pores smaller. Because it’s your skin structure and you cannot change it. But you can make it look smaller so that your face looks smoother. Large pores can affect your self-confidence. They are visible through makeup and everything. Pores do not open or close. That is just false information. Pores are the structure or texture of the skin. Not some bottle cap. Now the thing is, the size of pores depends on various things. We can shrink pores a little bit with proper care.

Factors Behind Pore Size on the Skin

Several factors affect your pore size. Genetics, skin type, age, sun damage, and skincare habits are 5 of them. We can’t control the genetic effects and aging. But other factors we can.

• When the surrounding structure of the skin does not have a solid frame so it can’t be supportive, as a result, the skin around the pore becomes dilated and the pores look more prominent.
• Aging makes the pores look larger. The reason is the same, the surrounding structure of a pore becomes loose.
• Oily skin type than other skin types has larger pores. Or at least it looks like it. It may be because the oily skin type has very large oil glands and pores.
• When you do not take proper care of your skin dead skin cells, and extra sebums, block the pores. That enhances the pore size or looks fuller and enlarged.

How to Shrink Large Pores

Pores are genetic. You can’t just shrink your larger pores to the smallest size. But there are different methods you can follow to make a smooth appearance of your skin.

1. Never Skip Sunscreens

So, sunscreen is the last step of your skincare routine but still, I am adding it here because it’s the most important thing that can prevent, and slow down so many things like aging, wrinkles, and of course, help pores look smaller. You are too tired to hear this again but Sunscreen is an important factor that affects many skin concerns. Sunscreen makes our skin healthy. When our skin is exposed to UV light, UV light activates a metalloproteinase in our skin. It damages the collagen. Collagen is a protein that builds our skin. The right amount of collagen is necessary for strong skin. When Collagen is low, skin starts sagging. It loses its supportive layer around a pore. So it becomes dilated and looks larger. So, you see Sunscreen is kind of the main reason behind smooth skin.

UV rays can enter through car windows or glass windows. So it’s important to apply sunscreen everywhere in the daytime. Wearing sunscreen will prevent dilating the skin’s epidermis and dermis layer. See your FAQs about Sunscreen here. If you’ve more questions you can ask that in the comments. I have also summarized some dos and don’t of sunscreen here.

2. Oil Cleansing before Facewash, or Double Cleansing

Oil clogs up the pores. So it’s important to remove old bad oils from your skin. Just a water-based cleanser is not enough to deep cleanse. To clean your pores properly do Oil cleansing. Using a cleansing balm makes my skin looks softer and smoother almost instantly. The message you do when you’re oil cleansing increases blood circulation. And we all know oils are the oldest method to massage our skin and benefit us in many ways. For a good cleanser, the pH level should be 5-5.5.

3. Exfoliate Gently

Exfoliation is very important to remove extra oils and dead cells. Dead cells can fill a pore and makes it look larger. You may use Lactic acid, and salicylic acid directly as chemical exfoliants or AHA, BHA-based cleansers.

A pore means a hole on the surface of our skin. Now assume there’s a hole in the ground of your floor. You cannot shrink that. But to make your floor look smoother what you can do is remove the top few inches of the floor. After removing the top few layers there will be no hole anymore because now it’s all in the same layer. With skin, we cannot be that harsh definitely but routinely exfoliating, and using retinol after a certain age can make the skin look noticeably smoother than you may have imagined.

Medical peeling is good for removing blackheads and all kinds of impurities. But if you’re gonna do that, do it from an experienced dermatologist surgeon.

4. Use Moisturizer Even if Your Skin is Oily

People with oily skin or larger pores think if they use creams they will clog their pores and make their skin more oily. But the fact is if you don’t use a moisturizer that will dry your skin from the inside and when that will harm your skin barrier. That causes inflammation and when that happens it will make your skin more oily and your pores more prominent. Very dry skin can also make pores look larger. So use a light moisturizer or lotion but do not keep your skin moisturized!

5. Focus on Creams with Collagen

So now that we know losing collagen can make the skin weaker we can focus on those products that build collagen. It will reverse the pore size to smaller. Retinoids like tretinoin, and retinol can help build collagen. Vitamin C is also a safe choice to build collagen. Collagen makes the skin stronger. I use Klairs Vitamin C serum (my only favorite Vit-C serum). My mother is recently using Ordinary Retinol 0.5% In Squalane. It’s her first retinol though. Note: You can use Vitamin C during the daytime but covering it with Sunscreen is a must. Use retinol before bedtime after cleansing your face and then apply a moisturizer.

6. Don’t let Oils sit on your skin

Oils are good for the skin. But if your skin is oily for a long period what happens is that oil blocks the pores. With that oil dirt also gets into the pores and tightens them. So basically a pore looks larger because it’s so full of oil and gets bigger because our skin also produces oils naturally. So decreasing oil production makes looking like you have fewer pores. Now, remember decreasing oil production does not (never) mean stopping using creams and using harsh facewashes. NO. Certain ingredients help oil production. Green Tea extract has shown the ability to decrease oil production. Green tea serums are also light and perfect for oily skin.

Avoid oil-based or heavy makeup. Use light water-based bb cream or foundation.

7. Diet

I am not a dietitian. But your diet makes the 50% healthiness of your skin.

• Don’t Smoke. EOT. has several severe bad effects.
• Dairy Products: It’s not harmful. But limit your dairy consumption from 100-300mL. It stimulates insulin and growth hormones which are good. But this causes more sebum production which makes the pores look larger.
• Sweets: Sweets increase the insulin level in the blood which influences the oil glands. I am not telling you to cut it off totally but to reduce it.

Embrace your skin anatomony, love it not matters how it is, because it defines YOU

💜