It’s a hard truth in the quest for perfect skin: You can’t actually make your pores smaller. (Like a lot of things, you can blame genetics on that one.) The good news: There are a ton of ingredients and treatments that can successfully minimize the look of them.
“Look for products that contain hydroxy acids, like glycolic acid or salicylic acid,” shares cosmetic chemist and founder of BeautyStat, Ron Robinson, in a recent Instagram video. “These products and ingredients can help exfoliate the pores and unclog them to give the appearance of smaller pores—at least temporarily.”
Besides the AHA answer, Robinson—who’s also the chemistry brain behind Hailey Bieber’s Rhode line—listed that using a treatment that helps firm and tighten the skin, cleansing your skin daily using a gentle exfoliating cleanser and wearing sunscreen every day are three key steps in the pore equation. “These methods work to shrink the appearance of pores by keeping the pores clear and reducing excess oil production in skin,” he says.
