I recently read this piece on Refinery29 discussing pore strips. I thought it was a bit of a wash out- none of their testers actually seemed to have any skin issues, so I have no idea how they were assessing the products. As a result all their feedback is a little lacklustre and not particularly helpful for people who genuinely have issues with pore size and blackheads.
I have fairly large pores and am always on the look out for things that will reduce them in size/appearance. I don't think there are genuinely products that will make your pores smaller, but there are primers one can use to disguise size. I do also struggle with blackheads, and last year I discovered these Boots brand pore strips. I tried a lot of pore strips as a teenager and always found them barely useful- they made almost no difference and I eventually decided they were a waste of time and money. I relied on (irregular) facials or careful extraction to get rid of them. I picked up the Boots brand as they were on sale and I had been doing a lot of travelling for work and my skin was really suffering.
Let me just say, these are fantastic. They are £4.99 a pack, but I buy them on a 3 for 2 offer, so they work out to £3.32 a pack, with six strips in each pack. This sounds really obvious once I figured it out, but the main trick to using nose pore strips is to make sure you do it after steaming your face. This could just be a really hot shower- I like to do it on the days I wash my hair and am spending the most time steaming in there- but I also use a facial muslin and hot water to open up the pores on my nose. Once you've done that for a good amount of time, stick a pore strip on, wait 15 minutes, pull it off and there you go.
If I have gone some time without using these, I use them a lot, to the maximum recommended on the pack (note- no more than 3x a week) to clear up as much as possible. After that I use one a week or less depending on what I need.
The nose strips are very reliable, but I don't find the facial ones as helpful, but they might be more helpful when used on the forehead and cheeks (I don't use them there as I don't have blackhead problems there).
You don't have to spend an awful lot of money on expensive toners- I've never found a toner that did anything to close my pores for longer than an hour. Ultimately it's about using products that keep them clean so you don't have problems, or using a good primer/concealer to disguise them. Give these a go, but make sure you steam your face a lot first. I held a hot muslin over my nose for 3 minutes, refreshing the muslin very often (as soon as it starts to cool down a little). I just did one, and I would take a photo to show you how well they work but that would probably be gross :)
