Pores, pores, PORES! It is all I see when I look in the mirror nowadays. For years I have not given them a thought but now there are two much-hyped products which are drawing my attention to them. Does it really even matter if they are visible? I was certainly keen on the claims of smoother even looking skin so I had to give them a go.
I bought Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser for £7.99 for 22ml from Boots (HERE). I received a sample of Benefit's The Porefessional as part of a recent Twitter promotion Benefit were running. It has similar claims to Maybelline's Baby Skin so my inner scientist thought it was a good idea to try them out together... *Warning: Contains extreme pore photographs and bad skin moments... (well don't say you weren't warned)*
To keep things on an even playing field I applied Maybelline Baby Skin to one half of my face and Benefit The Porefessional to the other. I then applied my Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation as usual, all over my face using my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush (review HERE).
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| Top: Maybelline Baby Skin Bottom: Benefit The Porefessional |
First impressions of the two products were that they were quite different. Maybelline Baby Skin is a clear silicone type gel which acts as a light weight primer. It applies nicely and doesn't feel heavy on the skin. Benefit's The Porefessional is a tinted product which feels more like a cream than a gel, it blends in well and the finish becomes matte in a cream-powder way (but it doesn't feel drying on the skin). It felt quite silky to the touch. Neither product has any fragrance or shimmer.
Once blended the matte nature of Benefit's The Porefessional becomes evident. Maybelline Baby Skin is not shiny but to the touch it has a moisturising gel feel to it rather than the powder finish feel of Porefessional. Once blended the tint of The Porefessional isn't really apparent, although I did feel that it disguised some pale freckles that I had.
Under foundation, I felt that the half of my face where I'd used The Porefessional was very matte - it made me look more made-up and my make up look heavier. To be honest I wasn't really comfortable with that. The half of my face that had Maybelline Baby Skin looked fine and still had a slight gel feel to the touch.
After a couple of hours I went to examine my skin closely in the mirror. I noticed that the foundation on the Porefessional side of my face (on the left in the photo below), was now clinging to dry patches. It looked slightly cakey too. In the name of science here is a dreadful photo of my skin and the dry patch in question. See what I mean? Yep you can see that the cakey-ness.
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| Foundation clings to dry skin on the left of my face - where I'd used Benefit's The Porefessional |
By the evening I have to say I really couldn't see any difference between each side of my face. My foundation had faded on both sides. I would say that my skin still felt more gel-like on the Maybelline Baby Skin side, although it was in an oily kind of way.
You may have noticed by now that the one thing I really haven't mentioned is PORES! I think that when you stare at your pores in the mirror it becomes quite difficult to ascertain how they looked before you applied the product. Luckily I took some hideous close up horror pictures of my pores before and after. So here they are: The money shots!
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| On the left half: Benefit The Porefessional On the right half: Maybelline Baby Skin. Before pore product, after pore product & after product with foundation also applied |
When I look at these photos next to each other I can see an improvement after I applied the products. Both products initially gave a more even look to my skin and pores are less visible! But if I am honest in the flesh I didn't really notice. Looking at the last photo where I have also applied foundation over the top I can start to see a little patchiness in the foundation on the left side where The Porefessional was applied. But there isn't a great deal of difference between the two products immediately after application.
Whilst I like the cream-to-powder silky finish of Porefessional when swatched on my hand, it didn't work on my face. I didn't like the over made-up matte look it gave me and I certainly didn't like how it clung to (previously unnoticed!) dry-skin.
And the winner is.......
For the sake of this experiment my vote goes to Maybelline Baby Skin - not least because it is £7.99 vs £24.50 for Benefit's The Porefessional. I don't think there was anything drastically different between the two performance wise so I don't see why you would pay the extra. Perhaps The Porefessional would work better on oily skin because of the mattifying effect. I do think Maybelline Baby Skin would be a bit too heavy for an oily skin and the silicone type feel would not be a good fit.
However, whilst I think Maybelline Baby Skin is a decent drugstore primer I don't think it compares to my favourite Smashbox Primers. I think I can feel another experiment coming on....
Have you tried any of these? How did they suit your skin type, do you think it helped disguise pores?
Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser is £7.99 for 22ml HERE. Benefit The Porefessional is £24.50 for 22ml HERE. Smashbox Primers are £25 for 30ml HERE.
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