Why and what can I do to prevent my pores to become bigger?

Do you think your pores are always too big when they are on our face as opposed to someone else’s?

Based on survey, the answer is yes though pores are supposed to be there. In fact, everyone has them except that they are more obvious in some people than in others due to many influences that are affecting the follicles, its contents and size.

Nevertheless, treatments are available that can temporarily help to minimize the appearance of pores. Regular exfoliation along with the use of topical treatments, i.e. retinoids, prove to be effective in helping our skin regenerate or turnover more normally as to control the activity of the sebaceous glands that contribute to the enlarged appearance of our pores. Other factors that affect pore size include genetics, sun exposure, and hormones. Sadly to say that our pores will appear larger and more prominent with the increased of age.

What we can do is:

• Start with a sun protection as this is the easiest way to eliminate one factor that leads to increase in our pore size.
  
  
• Topical treatments such as retinoids are useful to control the activities of sebaceous gland that affect the appearances of our pores. However, this treatment may not be suitable to everyone as it caused dryness and may irritate our skin.
  
  
• Cosmetics treatments such as lasers (i.e. machine that produces bands of light to target various elements in our skin to help improve the skin texture, tone and quality as well as to treat acne) and intense pulsed light treatments (i.e. using a broad band of near infrared wavelengths of light to penetrate various depths of skin to target both red and brown lesions and to treat acne), but the results may vary from person to person.
  
  
• Oral isotretinoin medications – this is known to be effective to temporarily decrease the sebaceous gland activity but should not be the first-line treatment without the presence of severe and scarring acne.
  

Do note that:

• Facial (i.e. usually done by an aesthetician) skin treatment if done properly can temporarily help to reduce pores.
  
  
• There is no permanent way available today to eliminate pores, because pores are a natural part of our skin.
  
  
• Appropriate powders and creams may camouflage the pores.