Dr Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner skincare review

Dr Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner

Hello friendos, I hope you’re feeling fine and dandy on this lovely Wednesday. I’m buried – buried – under work this week so this is all a bit rushed, but I wanted to quickly mention a product that’s been nobly soldiering on to give me lovely summer skin: Dr Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner.
Before I go any further, let’s quickly go over what a blackhead actually is. The pores in your skin secrete sebum, a natural oil that keeps your skin soft and supple and maintains your skin’s acid mantle to protect against bacteria, viruses and the day-to-day contaminants of everyday living. A blackhead is formed when the oil produced by your pores isn’t efficiently cycled move out of the pore itself, and this oil eventually oxidises and solidifies. Not all blackheads are black and not all blackheads are solid. The blackheads you get on your nose are oxidised to a dark colour but still relatively fluid (albeit a sticky, stubborn fluid), whereas the blackheads along your jawline tend to be waxy pale but have a very solid density.
Gross, I know, but blackheads are completely normal and every skin type can and will get them. I’ve got normal-dry skin and I get the occasional little dark dot on my nose, and I’m prone to getting blocked pores on my jawline every now and then. So don’t freak out! Blackheads are completely normal and a few spots here and there is not worth stressing over.
Just because they’re normal, however, doesn’t mean you can’t dislodge those suckers with extreme prejudice. Which brings me right back to Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner, one of the most low intensity/high results blackhead treatments I’ve used.

Dr Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner

Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner is a thick gel that I apply to any blackheads or congested pores. After a few minutes the gel dries and turns to a dry and powdery whiteish blue, and I leave this set powder on for around ten minutes before washing it off and cleansing as normal. The instructions advise that at some point I should feel a cooling sensation on my skin, but to be totally honest I’ve not felt it. Your mileage may vary!
Despite its name, Vacuum Cleaner isn’t going to magically whisk away blackheads from my pores. Instead it works by applying salicylic acid to gently break down the blackhead congestion bit by bit, while glycolic acid gives spot exfoliation and loosens any dead skin cells in the area that may be contributing to the blackhead itself. When the gel dries to a powder, that powder itself ‘grips’ onto the congestion and encourages the mass to further break apart (or, in the case of more fluid blackheads on your nose, the dry powder will slowly draw the viscous oil up).
Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner is like a next generation version of another blackhead treatment/maintenance product that I’ve used for a long time, the venerable Mario Badescu Silver Powder. Silver Powder also works by applying a wet mix and letting it dry to physically break apart congestion, but without the AHA and BHA ingredients of Vacuum Cleaner..
Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner has a few distinct advantages over Silver Powder though, the most obvious one being convenience – Silver Powder feels like an alchemical process and takes a while to master, whereas Vacuum Cleaner can be messily slopped on and left to to do its thing while I read my morning emails. The addition of AHA and BHA ingredients also makes Vacuum Cleaner a more multi-directional yet targeted product, whereas Silver Powder relies more on basic material physics than anything else.
I think the key thing to remember with Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner is that it’s a slow and steady process, and is best used in tandem with more physical extraction methods. I don’t advocate picking at your skin or trying to force out a blackhead by squeezing it, but it will make things like pore strips more effective, and boost the efficacy of things like a Clarisonic or AHA-based face cleansers.
Between Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner and the occasional dash of Mario Badescu Glycolic Foaming Cleanser to really get everything squeaky clean, I’ve made a significant reduction in dark spots on my nose, as well as almost completely eradicating any congestion on my chin. It just took a little time and care, and a little extra patience.
I only have one real complaint with this product, and it’s that my tube is unfortunately full of air bubbles. It was still sealed with its tamper cap in place when I purchased it, so I know it wasn’t already used or fooled with, but the amount of air in the tube means that it’s a pain in the butt to get enough product out to apply to my spots, and the tube almost immediately felt barely half full. Huh.