Why someone would want a gadget to do the job for them completely baffles me but the brains behind Bliss have devised a magic pore-clearing wand called – wait for it –the Porefector. The idea alone has gone down rather well, garnering some pretty impressive pre-release press which, in turn, managed to pique the interest of unwitting consumers (including my mate Chris, he of the problematic T-Zone). I was lucky enough to be one of the first journos in the UK to get my mitts on a preview version of the Porefector and so happily took to Chris' craters with the thing (with his consent, naturally).
The first thing you notice on taking it out of the box is its classy satin finish and the, er, sex toy ergonomics. The bit that does all the work is a spatula-like vibrating metal thing that's not entirely dissimilar to a paint scraper. There are only two buttons on the unit so there’s little room for error. So far so good.After a brief charge, the gadget powered up with a suspiciously light vibrating action. It became pretty clear that the device wasn't going to extract anything lodged deep in Chris' dermis. According to the instructions, one side of the spatula is for cleansing while the other is for unclogging the craters in question. Cleansing was pretty easy but digging out blockages was an entirely different matter.
Maybe steaming his face beforehand might have made a difference but, as it stands, we managed scrape about four layers of skin off the guy’s schnozzle rather than remove any blackheads. Some of the reviews about the Porefector have been positively glowing so maybe I'm missing something here and, if I am, I'll happily rewrite this review...but after 2 hours of trial-and-error on a Sunday afternoon, we gave up on the gizmo. Maybe using Bliss' own prepping serum (strangely absent in our kit) would have given better results, but I can't imagine how a topical solution would make a difference.Given that lots of guys suffer from large pores, which inevitably get clogged up with excess oil and give rise to blackheads (or ‘comedones’, to give them their technical name), this £125 wonder gadget might sound like it's too good to be true. And it is. The reality is nothing will ever top a good old fashioned squeeze.
Available this July.
