Why Are My Pores Getting Bigger as I Get Older? (The Round-vs-Teardrop Test)
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Quick answer
Your pores are almost certainly not getting bigger. The opening itself is a fixed anatomical structure — what changes is the skin around it, and that changes in a way most articles get backwards.
The usual explanation is oil. But the measurements point the other way. In a study of untreated postmenopausal women, sebum output fell over the first decade after menopause while mean pore size rose over the same period. Less oil, bigger-looking pores, in the same women, at the same time. Oil cannot be the driver when oil is going in the opposite direction.
What is actually happening is loss of the perifollicular scaffolding — the collagen, elastin and elastic-fibre proteins in the ring of skin immediately surrounding each pore. When that ring softens, the pore stops being held in a tight circle. It slumps. And critically, it changes shape: a sebum-driven pore stays round, while a laxity-driven pore stretches into an oval or teardrop that points down toward the jaw. That single visual difference tells you which problem you have — and the two respond to completely different things.
Practically: stop attacking oil you may no longer be producing, protect the scaffolding you have left with daily SPF, and put lipids back into skin that has quietly stopped making its own. An anhydrous botanical concentrate such as SD7 Lipid Serum is one example of that category — more on why the lipid route matters for pore appearance specifically below.
The paradox nobody mentions
Almost every page answering this question opens with oil. Pores are oil ducts; oil makes them bigger; therefore control the oil. It is a tidy story, and for a fifteen-year-old with a shiny nose it is broadly true.
It stops being true at exactly the age when people start asking this question.
Sebaceous output does not hold steady through adulthood — and it does not change the same way in men and women. A review of ageing in the sebaceous gland in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology puts it plainly: in elderly men, sebum production remains almost unchanged compared with that of young men even at the age of 80, while in women sebum content begins to decline with menopause. So for the group most likely to be typing this question into a search box, the oil supply starts falling at close to the same age the pores start looking worse.
And they do look worse. The most direct evidence comes from a study of postmenopausal ageing of the sebaceous follicle, which compared women receiving hormone replacement with those who were not. In the untreated group, researchers documented a significant decline in sebum excretion rate accompanied by an increase in both the sebum replacement time and the mean pore size during the first decade after the menopause.
Read that again, because it is the whole article in one sentence. Oil down. Pore size up. Simultaneously.
If your pore routine is still built around blotting, clay masks, foaming cleansers and oil control, you may be treating a problem you stopped having some years ago — and, by stripping an already lipid-poor barrier, making the appearance slightly worse.
The round-vs-teardrop test
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it takes about ten seconds. Stand in indirect daylight near a window — not under a downlight, which casts a shadow into every opening and exaggerates all of them. Look at your cheeks straight on, then tilt your chin up and down. You are looking for shape, not size.
| Round pores | Oval / teardrop pores | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | Circular, uniform, like pinpricks | Elongated, tapering, often pointing down toward the jaw |
| Where | Nose, inner cheeks, chin — the sebum-rich centre panel | Outer cheeks and lower face, spreading outward with time |
| Typical age | Teens through thirties | Late thirties onward; in women, often accelerating around menopause |
| Main driver | Sebum output and follicular plugging | Loss of perifollicular elasticity and tension |
| Changes when you lie down? | No | Often yes — they shorten or vanish (see the mirror test below) |
| Responds to | Salicylic acid, retinoids, oil control, non-comedogenic products | Sun protection, barrier and lipid support, in-clinic collagen-remodelling procedures |
| What makes it worse | Heavy comedogenic products, not cleansing | UV exposure, over-cleansing, stripping an already dry barrier |
Many people over forty have both at once — round on the nose, teardrop on the cheeks. That is normal, and it means you need two different tactics on two different parts of your face rather than one product everywhere.
The two-minute confirmation: the lie-down mirror test
If the shape call is ambiguous, gravity will settle it for you.
- Photograph your cheek in a mirror, standing up, in indirect daylight. Same distance, no zoom.
- Lie flat on your back for two minutes. Do not touch your face.
- Hold the mirror above you and photograph the same cheek at the same distance.
If the pores look markedly smaller, shorter or rounder lying down, they are laxity-driven. You have just removed gravity from the equation, and the skin has stopped dragging on each opening. A sebum-driven pore looks essentially identical in both photographs — the duct is filled, and orientation makes no difference to a filled duct.
This is also a fair explanation for something people describe constantly: that pores look worse in the evening than in the morning, and worse in a hand mirror held below the face than in a bathroom mirror. Both are gravity and lighting angle, not a real overnight change. The same end-of-day effect applies to fine lines, which we covered in why fine lines look worse at the end of the day.
What is actually failing: the ring, not the hole
The clearest published account of pore pathogenesis comes from a review by dermatologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, published in Cutis. Their summary is that seborrhea, loss of skin elasticity and tension, and hair follicle size are the three factors most clinically relevant to enlarged pores — with genetics, photodamage and acne among the secondary contributors.
Note that two of those three are structural, not oily. And the review is specific about the mechanism: skin elasticity and tensile strength, measured both visually and mechanically, show a negative correlation with facial pore size and density. Firmer skin, smaller-looking pores. It also notes that aged and photodamaged skin shows decreased expression of microfibril-associated glycoprotein-1 (MAGP-1) — a component of elastic-fibre assembly — in the dermis and specifically in perifollicular and pore areas.
That last detail is the one worth holding on to. The elastic scaffolding is not just thinning generally; it is thinning in the exact millimetre-wide ring that holds each pore in a circle. A pore is a hole in a fabric. When the fabric around the hole loses tension, the hole does not shrink politely — it distorts along the line of pull. On a face, the line of pull is downward. Hence teardrops.
Cleveland Clinic dermatologist Jane Wu, MD puts the same thing in plainer language: collagen and elastin are the proteins providing structural support for pores, and you lose them as you age, which allows pores to widen. The American Academy of Dermatology makes the causal chain explicit — the more sun-damaged your skin, the less firmness it has, and when skin starts to lose its firmness, pores look more noticeable. Their blunt version: pores look larger when skin sags.
And the reason the sun matters so much here is the same reason it matters everywhere else on the face. Mayo Clinic notes that ultraviolet radiation breaks down the elastin fibres and collagen in skin, and that without those supportive connective tissues the skin loses strength and flexibility. Every summer you did not wear sunscreen is a withdrawal from the account that keeps your pores round.
Six claims about ageing pores, checked
What you will read on the first page of results, against what the literature actually supports:
| Common claim | What the evidence shows | What to do with that |
|---|---|---|
| "Your pores get bigger with age" | The opening is a fixed structure. What changes is the surrounding skin's tension — and its shape. Cleveland Clinic is explicit that pore size is largely genetic and cannot be permanently shrunk | Aim at appearance and shape, not at "closing" anything. Judge results by how light falls across your cheek, not by pore count |
| "It's because your skin is oilier now" | Backwards for many adults, and it depends on sex. A Frontiers review notes sebum content in women begins to decline with menopause, while in men output stays almost unchanged even at 80 — and pore size in untreated postmenopausal women rose as sebum fell | If you're a woman past menopause and no longer shiny by lunchtime, the oil-control routine has outlived its purpose |
| "Cold water and ice close your pores" | There is a real tightening effect — Cleveland Clinic notes it lasts only a few minutes and fades as skin rewarms | Fine before a photograph. Useless as a strategy |
| "Red light therapy shrinks pores" | Cleveland Clinic's position is that the research has not proven it effective for reducing pore size specifically | Don't buy a mask for this reason alone; it may earn its place on other grounds |
| "Retinoids fix pores" | Genuinely supported, with a caveat. In a 568-patient randomised trial cited in Cutis, 42% of tazarotene-treated patients improved by at least one point on a blinded 5-point pore scale at 24 weeks versus 20% on placebo — though the review cautions that improvement in follicular keratinisation confounds the pore result | Worth using. Expect roughly one grade of visible change over six months, not transformation |
| "Squeezing or extracting keeps them small" | Cleveland Clinic advises against squeezing or using extractor tools, which can cause scarring and harm the skin. The AAD adds that picking, squeezing or digging into pores irritates skin, making pores look more noticeable | A scarred pore rim is permanently more visible than a full one. Not a trade worth making |
The bit that surprises people: your pore size has a menstrual cycle
If your pores seem to fluctuate on a schedule and you have assumed you are imagining it, you are not. The Cutis review notes that sebum output and pore size increase substantially during the ovulation phase of the menstrual cycle, likely through progesterone's effect on sebaceous gland activity.
Two practical consequences. First, if you are assessing whether a product is working, compare the same point in two cycles rather than week two against week four — otherwise you are measuring your hormones and crediting your serum. Second, if that fluctuation stopped some years ago and your pores have looked steadily worse since, the pattern is consistent with the postmenopausal shift described above: the oil-driven variation ended, and the laxity-driven trend took over. Different mechanism, different toolkit.
What actually works, by pore type
Matched to the round-vs-teardrop result. Be honest about which column you are in — the wrong column is why so many people conclude "nothing works."
| Approach | Round / sebum-driven | Teardrop / laxity-driven | Realistic timeframe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily broad-spectrum SPF 30+ | Helpful | Essential — the single highest-value step | Prevents future loss; no visible gain from it alone |
| Topical retinoid | Strong fit | Good fit | Judge at 24 weeks, per the trial data — not at 4 |
| Salicylic acid (BHA) | Strong fit — oil-soluble, works inside the duct | Marginal; can over-strip a dry barrier | 2–4 weeks if it is going to help |
| Non-comedogenic products | Essential — AAD notes that when pores clog, they expand, making them look more noticeable | Sensible but not the lever | Immediate, preventive |
| Lipid replacement / barrier support | Low priority — you have surplus | High priority — supply has fallen and the rim reads sharper when dry | Softness in 1–2 weeks; surface texture 6–8 |
| Aggressive foaming cleanser | Tolerable twice daily | Counterproductive | — |
| Microneedling / resurfacing lasers | Moderate | The most effective option — targets the collagen scaffold directly | A series, spaced 4–8 weeks; see a professional |
| Ice, cold water, pore strips | Minutes of effect | Minutes of effect | Cosmetic and momentary |
Notice how little overlap there is between the two columns. That is the cost of guessing wrong — not just wasted money, but a year spent stripping a barrier that needed feeding.
The pore-appearance protocol for skin over forty
Seven steps for the teardrop pattern specifically. Nothing here is exotic; the discipline is in what you stop doing.
- Stop cleansing like you did at twenty. Gentle cleanser twice daily — and warm water, not hot. The AAD is specific that hot water can irritate skin, causing pores to look larger, and that scrubbing causes inflammation, and inflamed skin makes pores more noticeable. If your face feels tight afterwards, the cleanser is too strong.
- SPF 30+ broad-spectrum, every morning, all year. This is the step that decides what your pores look like in five years. The AAD's chain is direct: sun damage → less firmness → more noticeable pores.
- Keep everything non-comedogenic. The AAD's instruction is to look for "non-comedogenic", "oil free" or "won't clog pores" on everything you apply to your face — and if you don't see one of those terms, don't use the product.
- Add a retinoid, slowly. Twice weekly at night, building up. The 24-week trial timeline is the honest benchmark — give it two seasons before you decide. Not for use in pregnancy or breastfeeding.
- Replace lipids rather than removing them. On skin whose glands are winding down rather than ramping up, a water-based serum is delivering the ingredient that evaporates. A lipid concentrate is delivering the one that stays.
- Apply downward-to-outward, not in circles. Small point, but if pores are elongating along the line of gravity, dragging skin further down twice a day is not helping the appearance.
- Fix your lighting and throw out the magnifying mirror. Dr. Wu's advice is worth quoting directly: "People tend to fixate on their pores and look at them with a magnifying glass. Then they think their pores are gigantic. My advice is to get rid of your magnifying mirror. No one else is looking at your face that closely."
Why lipids, specifically, for the appearance of pores
There is a mechanical reason dryness makes pores more conspicuous, and it has nothing to do with the pore itself.
A pore is visible because of the shadow it casts. Anything that increases the contrast between the rim and the opening — a sharper edge, a rougher surrounding surface, a duller light reflection — makes it read as larger to the eye at conversational distance. Well-hydrated skin with an intact lipid film has a smooth, slightly reflective surface that softens the rim and scatters light across it. Dehydrated skin has a rougher microtexture that catches light unevenly and draws a harder line around every opening.
Which is why a falling lipid supply matters twice over. According to StatPearls, sebaceous glands provide roughly 90% of the skin's surface lipids, and that film's job is to seal in moisture and prevent the skin drying out. When that supply winds down — as it does in women from menopause onward — the barrier loses its principal supplier, and the surface that used to soften every pore rim stops doing it. Mayo Clinic puts the downstream effect simply: dry skin shrivels plump skin cells, which can lead to fine lines and wrinkles.
So the goal is not to shrink an opening you cannot shrink. It is to restore the surface quality that made the opening unremarkable in the first place — and to protect what remains of the scaffolding holding it round. We went into the water-versus-lipid question in more depth in do face oils actually absorb or just sit on top.
Where SD7 Lipid Serum fits
Three honest limits first. No topical product changes the anatomical size of a pore — Cleveland Clinic is clear that pore size is largely genetic and cannot be permanently shrunk. Established laxity is best addressed in a clinic, with microneedling or resurfacing lasers that act on the collagen scaffold directly. And nothing substitutes for daily sun protection; using a serum without SPF is refilling a bucket with a hole in it. What a lipid concentrate can do is the surface-quality half of the problem — the half that governs how sharply each rim reads in ordinary light.
SD7 Lipid Serum is a 100% botanical, anhydrous concentrate — zero water. Rather than sitting on the surface and evaporating, it saturates the stratum corneum with the kind of lipids the skin uses to hold its own moisture, supporting the appearance of smoother, plumper-looking skin and a more refined-looking surface. On skin whose own glands have quietly wound down, replacing lipid is a more direct route than adding water.
Its five youth actives are bakuchiol (as 99.9% pure Sytenol® A), cacay, a triple-blend rosehip seed, black cumin seed and pomegranate seed, supported by Japanese camellia, virgin sea buckthorn, coriander, calendula and jojoba on an argan, sunflower, sweet orange and lavender base. On the published evidence behind several of those:
- Bakuchiol — a randomised trial in the British Journal of Dermatology found it matched retinol for wrinkles and pigmentation with less irritation. It is also photostable, so it can be used morning and night without adding sun sensitivity — relevant on skin already short of elastic reserve. See our fuller notes in bakuchiol side effects.
- Coriander seed — studied in Scientific Reports for inhibiting the collagenase and elastase enzymes that break down collagen and elastin — the two proteins the Cutis review identifies as holding pore rims in tension.
- Argan — a 2015 randomised study in Clinical Interventions in Aging found cosmetic argan improved skin elasticity in postmenopausal women — the group in whom the sebum-down, pore-size-up pattern is best documented.
- Pomegranate seed — research in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology found seed extract stimulates keratinocyte renewal, the epidermal turnover that surface texture depends on.
The formula is free from water, fillers, preservatives, parabens and synthetic retinols; because it is anhydrous, it is preservative-free by design. Vegan and non-GMO.
- Rating: 4.9 out of 5 from 51 reviews, with 8,200+ units sold.
- Guarantee: a 90-day money-back guarantee — long enough to judge surface texture honestly, and to compare the same point in two menstrual cycles rather than two arbitrary weeks.
- Formulated by S. C. Aris, and audited with patent-pending Vouchly AI fatty-acid-ratio analysis (GB2603970.1).
- In a customer survey: 93% reported smoother-looking fine lines and texture within 45 days; 100% reported softer-feeling skin within week one. These are self-reported survey figures, not clinical-trial results.
- What it is for: supporting the appearance of smoother, plumper-looking, more even-looking skin. It is a cosmetic product — a complement to sun protection and professional care, not a replacement for either.
Explore SD7 Lipid Serum. If the round-vs-teardrop distinction was new to you, the same shape-reading logic applies elsewhere on the face — see why the chest ages before the face, why one side of your face has more wrinkles, and our label-reading guide to fragrance in skincare.
Frequently asked questions
Do pores actually get bigger with age? The opening is a fixed anatomical structure and does not grow in the way a balloon does. What changes is the skin around it. Cleveland Clinic notes that pore size is largely determined by genetics and cannot be permanently shrunk, while collagen and elastin loss allows pores to widen in appearance. The measurable change with age is in the surrounding tension and in pore shape — round openings distorting into ovals and teardrops.
Why are my pores bigger if my skin is drier than it used to be? Because the two are connected rather than contradictory. In women, sebum output begins to decline with menopause, but the structural proteins holding each pore in a circle degrade over the same period — and a drier surface has a rougher microtexture that makes each rim read more sharply. In untreated postmenopausal women, researchers documented sebum excretion falling while mean pore size rose over the same decade.
How do I tell if my large pores are from oil or from ageing? Look at the shape in indirect daylight. Round, uniform pores concentrated on the nose and central cheeks are typically sebum-driven. Oval or teardrop pores on the outer cheeks and lower face, tapering toward the jaw, are typically laxity-driven. Confirm it by photographing the same cheek standing up and again after lying flat for two minutes — laxity-driven pores look noticeably shorter and rounder without gravity pulling on the skin.
Does sunscreen really make a difference to pores? It is the highest-value step for the age-related pattern. The American Academy of Dermatology states that the more sun-damaged your skin, the less firmness it has, and that when skin starts to lose its firmness pores look more noticeable. Mayo Clinic notes that ultraviolet radiation breaks down the elastin fibres and collagen that give skin its strength and flexibility. Sunscreen does not shrink existing pores; it stops the next decade of loosening.
Will a retinoid reduce my pores? Modestly, over months. In a 568-patient randomised trial cited in Cutis, 42% of tazarotene-treated patients showed at least a one-point improvement on a blinded pore scale at 24 weeks, versus 20% on placebo. The review cautions that improved follicular keratinisation confounds the result, so it is not purely a pore-tightening effect. Expect a grade of improvement over half a year, not a transformation.
Should I stop using my oil-control products? If you are past forty, no longer shiny by midday and your face feels tight after cleansing, they are probably working against you. Foaming cleansers, clay masks and astringent toners are built for a sebum problem. Switching them for a gentle cleanser plus lipid replacement addresses the barrier that has actually changed.
Can a serum tighten pores? No cosmetic product changes the anatomical opening. What a well-formulated serum can do is support the appearance of a smoother, more even-looking surface, which softens the contrast that makes a pore conspicuous. Structural change to the collagen scaffold is the domain of in-clinic procedures such as microneedling and resurfacing lasers.
When should I see a dermatologist? Worth booking if the change has been rapid rather than gradual, if pores are accompanied by persistent redness or visible small vessels, if you have raised yellowish bumps around the openings, or if you want the in-clinic options for skin laxity assessed properly. Any new, changing or persistent skin lesion should be checked regardless.
The bottom line
Your pores are not expanding. The ring of skin holding each one in a circle is losing its tension, and gravity is quietly pulling round openings into teardrops — at the very time many people, women after menopause especially, are producing markedly less of the oil that everyone still blames.
Spend ten seconds establishing which pattern you actually have. If they are round and central, the classic oil-control toolkit is right for you. If they are oval, on the outer cheeks, and they shrink when you lie down, you have a scaffolding and surface-quality problem: daily SPF to stop the loss, a retinoid judged over six months rather than six weeks, lipids put back into skin that has stopped making its own, and a conversation with a professional about collagen-remodelling procedures if you want structural change.
And then step back from the mirror. Nobody else has ever seen your face from four inches away under a bathroom downlight.
This article is for general information and describes cosmetic products by appearance and feel; it is not medical advice. Persistent skin changes, new growths or changing moles should be assessed by a doctor or dermatologist.