DIY Pore Strips

Sometimes we do things in the name of beauty that are really quite painful. Waxing, tweezing, threading, these are suck lets be honest here. Pore strips are another painful but wonderful thing we do to ourselves, I was plucking my eyebrows the other day when I noticed I had quite a few blackheads going on. Well, more like I had been voted Mayor of Blackheadville to be truthful. Being the crafty (and cheap) person I am, I turned to Pinterest to see if I could make some pore strips myself. Turns out you can with just two ingredients you may already own.

To make your own pore stripes you will need:

• 2 Tablespoons of milk
• A packet of unflavored gelatin
• Bowl and fork to mix
• A paint brush of some type

First you need to measure 2 tablespoons of milk into a microwave safe bowl. Percentage of milk doesn't seem to matter, it just needs to be milk. According to everything I've read the lactic acid in milk will act as a mild exfoliant. 

Now you are going to add one tablespoon of unflavored gelatin to your milk. My packets are about a tablespoon so I just used one packet. No reason to be 100% exact here.

Give everything a good mix, it should be a thick paste that really doesn't look awesome. I personally hate Jello so the smell bugged me quite a bit but for normal non-gelatin hating people you probably won't even notice it.

Now stick the bowl into the microwave for 15 seconds. This will melt the gelatin and make everything nice and warm. It was not to hot for my skin, but you can let it cool for a few seconds if you are concerned. Just remember it will solidify as it cools so don't wait to long.

Use that paint brush (or in my case an ELF foundation brush I don't use anymore) to apply it evenly to your face.

As you can hopefully see, I applied it to my whole face. This was a horrible idea, do NOT apply it to your whole face. Cheeks are to delicate and sensitive of an area for pore strips. Just do your forehead, nose, and chin. Try to avoid your eyebrows better than I did, otherwise you will get a bonus waxing while you are at it.

Wait about 10-15 minutes for it to dry completely. You will know it's done when the gelatin mixture is now rock hard. If you did your whole face like I did that means you will not be able to open your mouth at all, which was a little bit concerning. Now comes the (painful) fun part, peel it off of your skin. For the most part all of mine came off pretty well and did remove quite a bit of my blackheads, as well as any dead skin and tiny hairs I might have had. Any remaining on your skin can be washed away with a wash clothe and some warm water.

This worked pretty well minus my poor decision to put it everywhere. Does it work as well as the actual Biore strips? No, I think the Biore ones are a bit better but, these worked really well and didn't cost me a penny so I'm quite happy with it. On a side note, I'm trying something different with my pictures, any thoughts?