Watch a peeling mousse under a microscope visibly lift hunk from pores

• Neogen Pore Mousse is a K-Beauty facial peel that claims to remove dead skin, excess dirt, oil, and makeup from the pores.
• Insider Producer Celia Skvaril decided to try the Neogen Pore Mousse out for herself under a microscope.
• She spoke to Chelsea Scott, co-founder of The Beauty Spy, who sells the mousse in America, about how the product works like a vacuum to absorb dirt from the skin.
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• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Celia Skvaril: Hi, guys. It's me, Celia, back again trying another blemish-solving product. Today I am trying this Pore Tight Peeling Mousse by Neogen and The Beauty Spy. Oh, my God. Wait. What the heck? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't believe that. Oh, what? No, no, no. No, no, no. Mm-mm. Mm, mm-mm. I originally saw this product in a viral video on TikTok, so I needed to get my hands on it. It's made is South Korea, and it's a mousse-type peeling formula that has alginic acid in it. Now, I've never heard of alginic acid, so I looked it up, and I found out that it's in deep-sea plants like algae, and it's meant to help purify and cleanse skin. Looking at the TikTok video, you can literally see it working. I'm not familiar with these ingredients or this type of product, so I really have no idea what's going on here. So to learn more about how it works, I'm going to FaceTime Chelsea Scott, who's the cofounder of The Beauty Spy, who sells the mousse in America.

Chelsea Scott: Red algae has the ability to help clean out the pores, tighten up the appearance of the skin, make the skin look smoother, and obviously the benefit to that is if you have whiteheads, blackheads, and enlarged pores, it really just helps to brighten, tighten it all up, and pull all that gunk out. When all combined, it acts as a vacuum to gently lift all of the dirt and the debris. So, when you take the product out, you can actually see that it's white and the consistency. When this starts to actually mix into the skin, all of that gunk that you end up seeing is a combination of the product and the makeup and the dirt and the debris.

Celia: Before we try it, you know what happens first. I'm going to look at my pores beforehand under the microscope. Hey, girls and boys, how you doing? Everybody's looking great. Wow, we love that black hair on my nose. [gags] I sort of feel like it might be fun to name them. I feel like we're all really close now. So, should I do it with the same letter, like the Kardashians? Like, OK, let's go with Penelope, Peter, Piper. Chelsea said my face should be completely dry before I start. I just steamed my pores, so I'm gonna wait a few moments, just until my face is dry. Better take my Apple watch off so it doesn't get wet. And the only part of the body that's getting exercise are my pores. That was the worst dad joke I've ever made. [laughs]

It was in this moment that I realized either I messed up or the product just didn't work, so I decided to read the instructions again and watch a few more videos, and I realized I had forgotten to shake the bottle before using it. Once I shook the bottle... you'll see what happens next. What the heck? What's going on? Oh, my God. This is unreal. This is not OK. No. It's even on my hands. Look at this big one on my nose. You're supposed to take a wet towel, like a damp towel, which I have here, and wipe it off. [gasps] No.

Initial thoughts, right off the bat. My face looks very glowy and very shiny. And my face feels fine. It feels a little bit dry, but I think it looks really nice. It feels incredibly soft, so that's always good. Still seeing, obviously, some blackheads. I feel like it's probably impossible to get rid of all of them all at once. I remember this side of my nose was pretty bad. I think it looks better. Obviously it's not perfect, but I feel like you can tell the difference between ones that are clogged and ones that are clean. So, the chin looks pretty good. Obviously there's still a few, but I think the chin looks better than the nose. Same thing on the forehead. I definitely see a little bit of a difference. I don't know that I'll ever find a product that fully unclogs all of my pores. I don't know that that's possible. So, I am happy with how this worked. Would I have liked to see a little bit more of a difference on my nose? Yes. But I'm happy with the difference I see in my face just looking at it, as well as the difference I saw with the microscope on my chin and on my forehead. Let me get my scientist gloves out. Apparently that's how I think a scientist types.