Olay Total Effects Pore Minimizing CC Cream Review

Olay Total Effects Pore Minimizing CC Cream ($24.99) is a new product that's popping up in drugstores this week. I'm a sucker for anything that claims to fill pores and create a smooth, even canvas so I bought this right away, despite the high price tag for a drugstore cream. 

 It comes in a 1.7 oz. tube that's pretty large so this should last a while. Here are the claims on the box (click each photo to enlarge).

 Here's the ingredients:

This cream is thick but not like I thought it was going to be. Most pore fillers I've used have a balm-like silicone feel to them and they sit on top of the skin to smooth it out. This actually feels like any other CC cream...it's not that paste-like or primer-like consistency I was expecting. It's more of a thick, tinted moisturizer feel.
It comes in three shades: Fair/Light (which I'm using), Light/Medium and Medium/Dark.
Here's a swatch of Fair/Light:

At first, I didn't really notice this doing anything to my face other than providing a little bit of coverage. The pores on my face aren't huge, but I didn't notice much of a difference in their appearance. It also didn't have the primer-like finish I wanted. I set out to write this review saying that I was disappointed in this product and I felt jipped out of $25. I decided to demo it on my hand since I have large pores there and thought it would show up better on camera than it would on my face. I was planning to show how it didn't make much of a difference. But then I reviewed the photos and was like, "wait a minute!". The difference in my hand was huge! It evened out my skin tone and definitely minimized my pores! It also smoothed lines and wrinkles, see for yourself...

Before Olay Pore Minimizing CC Cream

After Olay Pore Minimizing CC Cream

Maybe I'm overly critical of the skin on my face and was expecting to see flawlessness, so that's why I was disappointed in this at first...I'm not really sure. But I can't deny that this made a huge difference on the skin on my hand. It also did a great job of evening things out. It doesn't have the coverage of foundation but it definitely makes my skin tone look uniform and even.

Even though I purchased this at Walgreens 

for $24.99, Ulta has it for $19.99, currently on sale for $16.99, which is a great deal!

So if you're interested in picking this up, I would go to Ulta and save $8 on it.