Let me preface this by saying I am not a face mist person. For all my beauty indulgences, face mists have never struck me as special enough to justify spending money on canned water. However, I’m acutely aware that they do have a purpose and not all are the same — which leads me to giving new ones a spritzing chance should they come my way.
What drew me to Neogen’s Sebum Clear Pore Mist partially was the implied function in its name. Clear pore, you say? Yes, my pores could always use some extra clearing, considering they’re pumping out way more oil and sebum since summer is doing it’s best fiery finale before autumn kicks in.
I gave the mist a little shake to mix it up (there’s some white sediment drifting around the bottom of the bottle) before spritzing on the back of my hand because I am really skeptical about ruining my makeup in just one spray. At first, the mist left a few white-cast marks like a super light coat of baby powder. They disappeared once I swiped them away with my fingers. But underneath was perfectly velvet-smooth matte skin. Whoa. I wasted no time in testing the same effect on my face. Matte in one refreshing instant and I didn’t have to potentially muck up my makeup by using blotting papers or brushing on powder. Plus — since it was a mist, it felt like literally nothing at all.
There’s a slight learning curve to using this, since you really need to make sure that the white stuff at the bottom is mixed in properly and all the way before spritzing or else you might look like you sprayed yourself in the face with a tiny fire extinguisher — but once you get the hang of it it’s worth it! Any white marks are actually easily erased with a light touch of your fingers or a fluffy makeup brush. Word of advice though — if you wear a lot of black (like me), strategizing a way to spritz while sparing the front of your shirt would be helpful. A towel (paper or terrycloth) bib gets the job done the easiest.
Like most Korean beauty products, nothing is just as simple as it appears, this mist being no exception. Other than helping you from looking like you succumbed to some grease fever, the dual liquid formula is not without purpose. As you may guess, the white stuff is the oil-absorbing “liquid powder” while the rest of it is a pore-caring cocktail of green tea extracts, tea tree oil, witch hazel, and lime extracts. Well-treated pores are calm, cool and happy pores — and most importantly not spewing out more sebum than you can sop up throughout the day. It’s nice knowing that not only does this pore mist perform at the moment, it’s also helping my pores chill out in the long term.
After spending the afternoon in the park on a hot sunny day in NYC, my face impressively stayed almost entirely matte. My T-zone, the oiliest offender, had shifted from a completely matte finish to a slightly eggshell “natural” finish after a few hours, which is honestly the best I can ask for since it was nowhere near its usual high-gloss finish. My makeup was firmly in place too — no mascara smudges under my eyes or streaky concealer to speak of. If all face mists pulled the weight of this one, I might actually start collecting them.
Until then, I’ll just keep this bottle handy.
