Benefit The Porefessional

I feel a bit bad about this review because I received my tube of Benefit’s The Porefessional from my husband for Christmas. It’s an item I requested and one that wasn’t cheap; a full-sized tube of this product goes for $36 at Sephora.ca. I asked for it because I thought I would love it (I love most of Benefit’s other products after all) but it turns out that I don’t.

I don’t hate it and I will use but it’s not the miracle product that I was hoping it would be. According to Benefit, this item, “Quickly minimize the appearance of pores & fine lines for smoother-than-smooth skin!” but on me, well, that didn’t really happen. Want proof? Check out the before and after photo below of my cheek. Yes, the shine is gone (more on that in a minute) but the pores are still pretty visible. While I didn't think they would disappear, I did expect my pores to be more obscured than they are.

I tried different quantities, I tried different application techniques but at best, my pores looked slightly hidden, slightly. I do agree that this is a “silky, lightweight balm.”

Porefessional goes on easily and does leave my face feeling perfectly smooth, even if it doesn’t look it. Benefit says that this product also “helps makeup stay put” and yeah, my foundation did appear to stick around longer when I applied it over Porefessional. However, the balm did nothing for my eye makeup.

The product page for Porefessional links to a tips-and-tricks page that is mostly the slightly different spins on the same tip. However, there was one that I found to be useful: “You can pat it on throughout the day to mattify shine and touch up problem areas...without messing up your makeup!“ I tried this and it actually worked. While my face wasn’t August-level greasy, it did have some shine. But as soon as I applied the Benefit balm to it, that shine vanished.

So hey, maybe this product will become my new best, friend come summer. I’ll try to remember to post about whether or not that’s the case.

A few other notes… While this product looks beige in colour, it actually goes on translucent and won’t impact the colour of your foundation, blush or any other makeup. It’s also packaged in a cute but durable tube that I don’t have any complaints about.

Will I buy this product again: Probably not unless it turns out that The Porefessional does a great job at mattifying my skin while I’m out and about.

Should you buy this product: There are people out there who absolutely love this product and based on the photos found over here, it clearly works for some. To see if it works for you, get a sample first.