Published: December 15, 2023
It can be frustrating dealing with pores that look large and dark. They give the face a bumpy and uneven appearance that nobody wants to be sporting! Unfortunately, it’s not possible to shrink pores. The size of your pores is determined by your genes and this is something that can’t be changed.
However, although you may not be able to shrink pores, there’s plenty that you can do to shrink the appearance of your pores, so that they look smaller and less noticeable. Read on as Avinichi talks you through 8 ways to do that!
1. Keep Your Skin Clean
Failing to properly cleanse your skin will lead to a buildup of dirt, sebum, and other impurities on your skin’s surface. It doesn’t take long before this buildup starts to work its way into the pores, leaving the pores looking darker and more obvious.
While regularly cleansing your face won’t shrink pores, it will go a long way in making your pores less visible. With that said, you need to use a gentle cleanser. Anything too harsh could run the risk of irritating your skin, with inflammation being something else that enlarges the appearance of pores.
The Noni Mousse Cleanser from Avinichi would be a great choice. Being a mousse cleanser, it’s much gentler than a foam cleanser, yet it won’t leave your skin feeling weighed down in the way that a thick cream cleanser might.
In order to ensure that your skin is kept clean, aim to cleanse twice a day. Ideally, in the evenings, make this a double cleanse. Start off with an oil-based cleanser and then follow up with a water-based cleanser, like our mousse cleanser. Double cleansing will remove more impurities than a single cleanse will, which is good news for your pores!
2. Regularly Exfoliate Your Skin
Although it’s not possible to shrink pores or change your pore size in any way, the openings of your pores are quite elastic in nature. They expand and contract when needed. One reason for their expansion is when the pores end up clogged with sebum, dead skin cells, and other unwanted particles. When these gather in your pores, they stretch out those openings, making the pores look much bigger.
Cleansing twice a day will help to prevent this, but it won’t completely stop this, which is why it’s so important to regularly exfoliate your skin too. An exfoliator will work at a deeper level than a cleanser, removing impurities from within your pores so that your pore openings won’t need to stretch to accommodate them.
However, just like when choosing a cleanser, you need to pick a gentle exfoliator. Abrasive scrubs are often people’s first choice but the way in which these tug at the skin leads to irritation, along with large-looking pores.
Instead, your best bet would be to opt for a formula that isn’t too abrasive. Alpha-hydroxy acids can be beneficial but, again, you don’t want to go with anything too potent.
That’s why we created the Avinichi Noni Polishing Peel. It exfoliates with a mix of bamboo powder and mandelic acid. Both are gentle exfoliants on their own that become more powerful when combined. At the same time, they won’t cause irritation or inflammation, enabling them to minimize the visibility of your pores while brightening your overall complexion.
3. Add Vitamins A and C to Your Skincare Routine
There are certain ingredients out there that can be particularly advantageous for those who are struggling with large pores, and vitamins A and C are two of them.
Both of these ingredients are antioxidants. This makes them fantastic for reducing the look of oxidative damage in the skin, which is something else that can cause the pores to look larger.
Of course, both ingredients provide other benefits too. Although they won’t literally shrink pores, they both help to lighten the look of discoloration and even out the skin tone while also firming up the complexion. All of this can help the pores to look less obvious.
You’ll find both vitamins in the Avinichi Multifruit Hydrating C-Serum. They’re joined by mulberry fruit extract, which is also great for evening out the skin tone. Use this serum daily and the surface of your skin will look smoother and more bump-free in no time!
4. Look For Products That Firm and Tighten the Complexion
The skin aging process isn’t kind to the pores. As the skin ages, it starts to sag due to the breakdown of the proteins that keep the skin firm and taut. When the skin sags, the pores do too, which can make them look larger and more stretched out.
One way to counter this is to start using products designed to reduce the appearance of skin aging. This way, you’ll be able to give your skin a firmer and tighter finish, which will also make your pores look tighter and smaller.
We’ve already talked about the benefits of vitamins A and C, with both of these being effective at diminishing the look of aging. However, there are plenty of other ingredients that do the same, making it worth incorporating as many as possible into your skincare routine. Every ingredient will tackle the appearance of aging in its own way, so you’ll see results sooner if you combine a few.
The Avinichi Hydrating Antioxidant Serum from our Phyto Thermal Collection would be a good way to give your skin several of those ingredients. It’s packed with botanical extracts that are loaded with antioxidants revered for how they tighten and brighten the look of the skin. It contains multiple peptides too, which will leave your skin feeling stronger and more capable of defending itself against any environmental damage that could potentially leave your pores looking larger.
5. Shield Your Skin With SPF
Speaking of environmental damage, the sun causes the majority of this. The UV rays emitted by the sun damage the skin’s protein fibers, which keep the skin firm. This drastically accelerates the skin aging process, meaning sagging skin and sagging pores.
Not to mention, sun exposure also increases sebum production in the skin. When your skin produces more sebum, your pore openings expand to enable that extra oil to flow through. As you can imagine, this then makes each pore look larger.
So, while SPF isn’t going to help you shrink pores, it will certainly prevent your pores from looking enlarged. With that said, make sure that you use a non-comedogenic sunscreen. A formula that’s heavy with pore-clogging ingredients will only build up within your pores, leaving them more noticeable. Since your sunscreen needs to be reapplied every two hours to ensure that your skin is sufficiently protected, a lightweight formula is definitely the way to go!
6. Use a Clay Mask Once a Week
If your skin is excessively oily, then there’s a good chance that this is what’s causing your pores to look large. As we explained earlier, the more sebum emitted by your skin, the wider your pores will appear.
Exfoliating your skin a few times a week will help to clear out some of that sebum, but adding a clay mask to your skincare routine too will really round things off. Clay is revered for how it absorbs sebum, making it a great ingredient for clearing out clogged pores.
One way to amplify the effects of a clay mask is to use one with a self-heating formula, like the Avinichi Phyto Remedy Thermal Mask. The way in which it warms the skin leaves the pore openings feeling more elastic. This allows a greater amount of sebum to be removed. Once the mask is removed and your skin cools down, your pores will look much smaller!
7. Use a Cold Jade Roller on Your Face
Jade rollers have become extremely popular lately. These simple tools offer up a huge array of skin benefits, one of which is reducing the appearance of pores. The good news is that they have this effect almost immediately. The downside is that the results are temporary, although they can be enhanced and prolonged with the use of the other methods on this list.
If you don’t yet have a jade roller, consider investing in the Avinichi Phyto Thermal Collection. It contains a couple of the products that we’ve already featured, and these are accompanied by a jade roller.
For maximum benefits, store your jade roller in the fridge or the freezer so that it’s cold when it’s applied to your skin. The low temperature will have a de-puffing effect on your complexion. Although this doesn’t shrink pores, it will help to make them look tighter and smaller.
8. Look Into Professional Treatments
Ideally, when incorporating new skincare products into your routine, you need to give them a few months to work. While cleansing, exfoliating, and masking will provide faster visible results, working on tightening up the look of your skin will take longer.
If, after following the above tips for a few months, you don’t see a difference in your pores, it may be time to turn to a professional for some extra help. Professional treatments target the skin on a deeper, cellular level, enabling them to produce more significant results.
There are several treatments out there designed to minimize the look of pores. A simple facial would be a quick and easy option, particularly if extractions are included. This involves the manual removal of debris from within the pores.
Chemical peels can be useful too. They tend to be more intense than at-home exfoliators, making them great for dramatically smoothing out the complexion and diffusing the appearance of pores.
Microneedling and laser treatments are very effective too, although you won’t see results immediately. It usually takes a few sessions, along with several weeks, for these treatments to really kick in. However, once they do, the results will be more than worth the wait.
Summary
People are often disappointed when they find out that it isn’t possible to shrink pores. However, by adopting all of the products and techniques that we’ve shared above, you’ll soon find that you no longer need to try to shrink your pores because they’ll soon start to look smaller, lighter, and significantly less visible.
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