Estée Lauder Idealist Pore Minimizing Skin Refinisher

I finally decided to take the plunge and buy some Estée Lauder Doublewear foundation.  I can now officially say that it is the best foundation I have ever used. However this post in not about the amazing foundation but the serum that I bought whilst purchasing the Doublewear. I did not intend to buy a serum, but when the beauty consultant removed some of my foundation to do a colour match; it revealed my skin which is similar to the surface of the moon. She recoiled in horror and quickly recommended that I try the pore minimizing serum.  As soon as I heard `reduces pore size by 1/3’ I was sold and bought the 30ml bottle at £40 to try.

As soon as I got home (and after playing with my new foundation) I went online to have a look on the Estée Lauder website to find out what other amazing things this serum can do.

Here is what Estée Lauder say:

This fast-acting serum delivers our most dramatic skin resurfacing benefits-more efficiently than ever before.
With Idealist, your skin looks and feels like your ideal skin:

·         Pores appear 1/3 smaller-instantly, unbelievably soft and smooth.

·         Repairs the look of uneven skin texture, flakiness and roughness.

·         Smooth it on and instantly enjoy that soft, seamless, silky feeling you love.

·         See more clarity and luminosity.

·         Gives skin an overall more even tone.

So for the last few weeks I have been applying the serum morning and night between cleansing and moisturising (one pump each time) as directed by the Estée consultant. The serum itself is of a light texture with a fresh lemony fragrance, on application it makes the skin feel smooth and silky. 

So initially it is enjoyable to use, I found that it did help to repair flakiness and is a good refinisher. However as time went on I found that it did not give the same silkiness as it initially did and also my pore size did not reduce by 1/3 as claimed. I would say that this serum is in fact a primer with extras, as it smooths out the skin instantly (as claimed) however when I wash my face of an evening the smoothness washes away too. I found that this did not treat the large pore problem but only masked it like a primer. It did however treat the flaky skin problem without over exfoliating/moisturising so I did like it for that element.

I also found that using it all over my face was not of any benefit,  in fact it started to give me small white heads on my cheeks & forehead. This is probably due to the high content of silicone which can often create the problem you are trying to treat as some skin types do not react well to it. I now just use it on my nose which is the target area and have reduced it to one application in the morning.

Overall Thoughts:

PROS

- Fresh lemony fragrance with a light texture

- Good refinisher and helps to combat flakiness

- Creates a smooth finish and acts like primer

- Has antioxidant ingredients

CONS

- Did not reduce pore size by 1/3

- Did not treat the large pores but masked them (masked well but I bought a treatment not a primer)

- High silicone content

- Caused a few pimples to arrive

Overall I find that this works well on my nose to help with the oily/flaky balance as it is a gentle exfoliator. However I would not use it as a pore minimizing treatment all over my face as the pore minimizing aspect of this serum is in my opinion just a primer. I will use the whole pot as I have over half left but I am not sure I will re-buy

Have you tried this? What is you opinion?