All I do in my routine is this very simple: I just simply wash my face and then apply a little bit of the shielo complexion scrub on my fingers and gently applied to my face in a circular pattern. I let it sit a little bit while brushing my teeth and then I wash it out with warm water and pat dry with a cloth. It has worked well for me and I can recommend it.

One product which helps a little is the Burt’s Bee’s Blemish Stick, it has a lot of ‘essential oils’ in it (ironic, essential OILS! for acne-like problems!) but obviously they return, this seems to slow them down a bit.

I wish you luck and thank you and your readers for their input. It’s all interesting and helpful. And gross. Damn you stupid pores.

Happy holidays

I have enlarged pored on my nose as well and I had pretty noticeable blackheads. I went to Taiwan for a month in the summer where the weather was really humid and I sweated like mad since it’s so humid and hot. Day in and Day out. By the end of the month my skin had no little bumps or blackheads and it was nice and smooth like a baby’s bum. I came back to North America and the nice skin went back to having little bumps and blackheads (and acne). Now, I couldn’t conclude really what factor it was that helped with clearing my pores, although I knew that sweating was a large part of it but then it was also an entirely different country, with different sources of water and water filters, different food diet etc etc and so forth. I don’t know if it’s a combination of all or not, but then my friend got me into hot yoga, where you sweat and workout in 90 minutes. Doing that 3 times a week has greatly reduced my pore size and blackheads. My nose doesn’t feel bumpy anymore (the blackheads that must be sticking out I guess). So the moral of the story here is that I greatly believe that the strongest defense to blackheads is sweating profusely. It kinda makes sense, I mean all the sweat that pours out from the pores must also be pushing out the sebum and dead skin cells in the pores. And the great thing is that every pore sweats (so no extraction of blackheads one by one). OH and the pore sizes stay minimized for a couple of days (which keeps me doing yoga regularly, lol). I highly recommend inducing sweat one way or another regularly (sauna, steambath, face over a bowl of hot water, excercise.. anything that works for you although hot yoga is a nice option since it’s also healthy)

-salicylic acid (2%)
-glycerin
-sodium hydioxide
-benzoic acid
-ALOE BARBADENSIS LEAF JUICE
-CHAMOMILLA RECUTITA (MATRICARIA) FLOWER EXTRACT
- SODIUM C8-16 ISOALKYLSUCCINYL LACTOGLOBULIN SULFONATE
etc. Basically, it contains A LOT of the same ingredients here: http://shop.avon.com/shop/ingredient_popup.asp?pf_id=6538&campaign_no=200803&name=Clearskin%AE%20Purifying%20Astringent%20Blackhead%20Clearing%20Formula but not EXACTLY all of those listed on that Web page.