Do pores really "open" and "close"?

[Backdrifter]

We all talk glibly about this process of "opening the pores" etc but is it really true? We must have millions of pores - is there really a tiny ring of dilatory muscle surrounding each one?

I do recall someone on TV, years ago, irritably saying what nonsense it was that we talk about pores opening & closing but that's the only voice of dissent I've ever heard. But, instinctively, what he said made sense to me.

[Champagne]

I was always led to believe that they don't open or close. Our skin is porous, but only in respect of our pores producing oils. The only time a pore 'opens' as such is when one of them becomes clogged, which is what leads to spots.

[Backdrifter]

Yes, we produce oils and of course we sweat, and all this happens via the pores. But if the thousands, if not millions, of pores on your face, for example, all "closed" wouldn't you feel some sort of cumulative tightening of your face?

It seems to me that the pores must just be static and they're either emitting oils or sweat etc or not.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Well, normally they 'open' because you've heated them up, for example in a steam bath, and as we know, things expand when heated.

This is what used to happen in the Roman baths. You'd lark around in the hot water and your pores would expand, making it simpler to wash. When you were done, you jumped into a cold plunge pool to close the pores up again. So I reckon it's just expansion and contraction due to heat we're talking about.

[Backdrifter]

A single body of material will expand and contract with temperature but millions of tiny little individual holes that are an integral part of the skin, all expanding and contracting together, in unison? I don't buy it. Plus, it's always been my understanding that the only way a part of the human body can expand or contract is via muscle action and, as I said, this in turn would imply each pore has its own ring of muscle, which seems equally crazy and improbable.

I need hard evidence of pore dilation!

[missing~link]

I was always under the impression that blackheads were pores infected with debris, such as soap etc. and that whiteheads were similar but the 'soap' or other matter was enclosed in the pore having closed, unlike the blackhead which is still open to be squeezed!

[joko]

think of what happens to a willy in the cold and how it is when warmed up ...

- it is just a skin tightening which, as a side has the effect of closing the pores - it is not an individual muscular opening and closing - look at what happens with goosepimples? how each tiny area of skin reacts ot the cold.

[claireyfairy]

I do know that once a pore has been enlarged it cannot be reduced as the change is perminant. So much for all these "pore refining" treatments eh? Also while we're at it, all these creams with added vitamins etc are a load of rubbish too. The pores on the skin are to small to allow the passage of molecules as large as vitamins such as Vit.C so these creams are not absorbed, they mearly sit on the surfae of the skin, blocking pores.