Is there a girl alive who doesn’t obsess about the size of her pores? (Okay; I imagine there’re prolly girls in Ireland who don’t, but outside of Ireland, the rest of us do.) I can remember steaming my face until I broke capillaries, making little red circles all over my face with extractors, using scrubs until my face was raw, applying salicylic acid preparations until my face peeled like an onion … and then a few years ago, I read that scientists were working on a way to pull sebum plugs from pores using cyanoacrylates (Superglue!) and having some luck with it, and they hoped to have a product on the market within a couple of years. I hoped they did, too, but all too often, these great promises never result in a product on the shelf. When the Bioré pore strip showed up, I knew the scientists had succeeded at something, and I couldn’t wait to get home to see whether, at last, there’d be a happy ending in my fight to have invisible pores!Well, if you’ve used Bioré pore strips, you already know how this story goes: you wash your face, making sure to get the areas on which you plan to apply the strip extra-clean (I shampoo those spots) and then apply the strip, then let it dry. Once it’s hardened, you pull the strip off (sometimes along with the peach fuzz on your face) (ouchie ow ow) and then marvel at the little plugs it’s removed. It’s nothing short of magic. And there you have it: Irish Face! Next thing you know, you’re applying strips to your chin, across your cheeks, your forehead, and even to your temples, and really ripping out peach fuzz (along with some of your hair along your hairline), and even taking out a few eyebrows you couldn’t afford to lose. Your eyes are watering and your nose is stinging, but it’s all worth it because your pores are bee-yoo-tee-full! Sure, there are drawbacks: every now and then, you get a hematoma across the bridge of your nose, or those missing eyebrows you hafta pencil in for a few weeks, but the worst was the time I entered a steamy bathroom to remove my strip and the glue softened, and I ended up removing not just the strip but several layers of skin as well. I’d been on my way to my high school reunion and had to attend with a raw, weeping, gaping wound in the middle of my face. That was the height of suckage. My pores weren’t just clean; I DIDN’T HAVE ANY PORES. I didn’t have any skin! Girls, never pull off a damp pore strip!

Another drawback is the urge to whip out and apply a pore strip to every fat-pored, cauliflowered-nosed man who hits on you. Once you get your pore situation squared away, you become hyper-aware of everyone else’s pores, and you feel like dashing out to the nearest drugstore to grab a box to help out unenlightened souls so they don’t inflict their gigantical pores on others. It gets distracting.

But all in all, Bioré pore strips change your life for the better! It’s only fifteen minutes out of your life once a week, while you watch TV (or read this blog) and you can have an Irish face, too. (Tip: buy enormous quantites of the strips cheaply on eBay. Kao is the parent company of Bioré, so if someone’s selling Kao strips in Hong Kong or Korea, don’t assume they’re fakes; they’re not. They’re the real thing.) And remember to keep your pores clean in the first place by never going to bed with makeup on!

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