Benefit POREfessional Review

Benefit's The POREfessional is a pore-minimizer that claims to quickly minimize the appearance of pores and fine lines for smoother-than-smooth skin! It can be applied alone, under or over makeup. It's silky, lightweight, translucent, and oil-free and acts as a primer to help makeup stay put.

I received a sample with a purchase I made at Sephora recently. I'm impressed lately with Benefit samples (see my recent review of CORALista) since they're clearly putting effort into packaging and for a company like Benefit whose packaging is on par with the desirability of the products, this is important.

My little tube of The POREfessional is 0.25 oz., plenty for a few applications.

I tried it on my cleansed, moisturized skin. I wouldn't use it on top of makeup simply because it'll smear the product. You shouldn't put cream or liquid products on top of powder products, that's a no brainer. So if you have large pores, you most likely have oily skin and if you wear makeup, it's probably a powder makeup or you have to powder your makeup to keep it in place. You wouldn't want to use this product on top of your makeup.

But I found it made quite a dramatic difference on the texture of my skin. I have large pores on my cheeks next to my nose, on my nose and on my forehead - the classic t-zone. This is where my skin is naturally a bit pinker than the rest of my face, and it's where my skin gets shiny during the day.

The photos below show before and after application of The POREfessional. I found that The POREfessional reduced the shine on my skin, balanced the skin tone slightly and definitely minimized the look of my pores. My skin looked smoother, less pore-y and even-toned. I was impressed.

I applied makeup as I normally would on top of The POREfessional and it definitely make a difference in the way my skin looked. I was also impressed with its primer capabilities. It held on for most of the day, my pores stayed minimized and my makeup stuck.