More gunk than you would have believed possible! (Biore Pore Perfect Ultra)

Member Name: chrisandmark

Product:	Biore Pore Perfect Ultra
Date:	06/07/04 (1092 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Leaves skin feeling smooth and clean, Easy to use, Effective

Disadvantages: Price

Recently I told you about my pampering day when I used the oh so painful Immac wax. Well, another product I dug out of my full to the brim toiletries box (note: not bag, I buy so many toiletries in the average month that I now have to use a box! lol) was a pore refining treatment from Biore. I wasn't really expecting much of a result from these as I've been blessed with really clear skin, in fact the last spot I had erupt on my face was about 8 years ago - apart from the one that came up the day before I was due to get my photo taken for the newspaper but I don't put this down to being a spot I put it down to sods law...

Anyway, Biore Face Perfect Face Strips are basically a little fabric strip that you stick either on your forehead or chin and, after leaving it for a while, you peel the strip off it lifts dirt and blackheads out of your pores. I don't have a blackhead in sight but here in Birmingham we've got very high pollution and I thought it wouldn't do me any harm to give my pores a good clean out.

Biore Face Strips come in a small box containing 6 navy blue sachets which each contain one strip. Also in the box is a very detailed instruction sheet, which on closer inspection is just a way Biore have found to advertise their many) other products. Each sachet is printed with instructions for using the strips so I didn't bother to keep the instruction leaflet or box. The amount of stuff I've got in my box, space is of the essence!

Opening one of the foil sachets, I see a white strip which is approximately 1 inch wide by 3 inches long. I wouldn't normally bother you with dull as dishwater measurements but my reason for telling you this will become apparent later on in the op. I've decided to use the strip on my chin as I don't have the notorious oily T-Zone which affects a lot of women across the forehead, nose and chin but I find my foundation clogs the pores in the middle of my chin sometime
s so it sometimes looks like my skin is in poor condition. As per the instructions, I wash my face and then thoroughly wet the area on my chin where I'm going to stick my strip. I stuck the strip to my chin and sat back in a bath full of bubbles and waited for it to stiffen, which indicates it's dry and ready to be unpeeled. If only everything took 15 minutes to stiffen and was still stiff after use, eh girls.

Now, I take a looooooot longer than 15 minutes in the bath (and this particular evening Mark came in to *ahem* scrub my back) so the strip was in place for a three quarters of an hour before I peeled it off. While it was stiffening, it pulled my skin quite taut and the feeling wasn't altogether pleasant although it was completely painless. To peel the strip off you must peel from the edges into the centre of the strip in all directions as this allows more gunk (for want of a better word!) to be removed. It tells you on the sachet that if the strips sticks too strongly to your skin or if causes any discomfort at all it can easily be removed by thoroughly wetting the strip and peeling it off. My strip peeled off really slowly and easily (as should all strips...) and I quickly threw some cold water in the general direction of my chin to stop any redness. I've used a similar product in the past which was made by Oxy, but with Oxy Blackout you get a strip which is basically sellotape for skin! I remember using Oxy Blackout a few years ago and pulling the strip off felt similar to my waxing experiment! Using Biore is much less painful and I also felt the strip stuck better to my skin, which I think is because these strips are fabric whereas the Oxy strips were clear plastic and didn't attach itself properly to the contours of my face.

Then I looked at my used strip. MY GOD. Now as I said, I've got good clear skin. I use exfoliators, soap free cleansers, face cream and any other lotion and potion which claims to make me ins
tantly more beautiful. So you can imagine how shocked I was by the amount of gunge I had come off on the back of my strip! There is no way that this is caused by sloppy cleansing of my face so I can only assume that pollution, not removing my make-up properly and having pores that carry magnets to attract dirt! The back of the strip was covered in little white flecks which otherwise would have been left festering in my face... The skin on my chin under where the strip had been felt lovely and smooth afterwards and it actually did look clearer. My pores looked a bit bigger than usual but a quick dab of astringent on cotton wool soon shrunk them down to normal. Running my finger over my skin it felt cleaner, clearer and strokably smooth.

So after this amazing discovery where I revealed all the gunk which I didn't know existed in my skin, I decided another 15 minutes in the bathroom was in order to use another strip on my forehead. Unfortunately, by this time Mark had gone to the shop so I had to suffer my own company for a quarter of an hour! Remember I told you the measurements of the strips? My forehead is bigger than 1" x 3" and I didn't want to waste 2 strips so I stuck it on the centre of my forehead just above my eyebrows. But this miffed me a little bit. This wasn't a cheap product and there is no way Biore could be classed as a cheap brand. Yet, it expects me to use two strips out of six for one treatment and when you consider I've already used one strip on my chin that means I'd be using half the packet in one fell swoop. You could say I got into a strop over the strips. Anyway, the strip I used on my forehead didn't have as much gunk on as the one I'd removed from my chin but it did make my skin smoother. I found my forehead went redder than the skin on my chin had, but this faded after 15 minutes or so, and the strip was slightly harder to remove and there was a horrible pulling sensation as I peeled the stri
p off. I assume this is because the skin on your forehead is thinner than on your chin and so more sensitive. It was painless however and more of a yucky feeling than anything.

I brought my Biore strips from Boots and it cost £7.50 for 6 strips, the Oxy Blackout I've used in the past cost around £3.99 for 15 or 20 strips although the treatment wasn't as effective as the Biore. Biore suggest you use the strips as part of your face care every three days (but no more often than this) but I find that the clean, unblocked feeling in my pores lasts over a week so tend to use it on a weekly basis. Biore also do a range of cleansers, nose strips and loads of blemish fighting treatments. You can find a full list of Biore products on their website at www.biore.com where you can also do a skin profile to find out what Biore product will suit your skin the best. The only cautions are to avoid using the strips on blemishes or inflamed, sunburned or very dry skin and do not use on skin that is already being treated with prescription acne medicine.

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