Pimples are a common, usually harmless, type of skin lesion. They happen when your skin's oil glands make too much oil called sebum. This can lead to clogged pores and cause pimples. Pimples can take as long as six weeks to go away, but smaller, single pimples may take only a few days to disappear.
In your attempt to pop a pimple that's not ready to be opened, you risk exposing the inner layers of your skin to bacteria and other irritants. This can make it take longer for your pimple to heal, resulting in other pimples and even permanent scarring on your face.
Hard pimples develop when dead skin cells, sebum, and bacteria enter the skin's surface. This can cause the skin to become irritated and even infected. Hard pimples appear as raised bumps on or under the skin's surface. Sometimes, they're filled with pus.
While you can sometimes gently extract a whitehead, there are certain types of pimples you should never try to pop. Any red pimple without a white head (called papules) should not be squeezed. Those big, inflamed, deep blemishes (nodular breakouts and cysts) should never be squeezed,5? either.
While there is no way to magically make your
pimples disappear, there
are a few tricks that
can minimize your breakout and even stop it dead in it's track.
Here are five tricks for deescalating your pesky pimples.
- Warm and Cold Compresses. WARM.
- Crushed Aspirin.
- Drying Lotion.
- Spot Treatment.
- Regular Retinol Use.
To treat a blind pimple with a warm compress, a person should:
- Create a warm compress. Soak a clean washcloth in water that is hot, but not too hot to touch.
- Apply the warm compress. Hold the warm compress on the blind pimple for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Keep the affected area clean.
If you're bleeding enough, you might need to apply pressure with a clean paper towel or washcloth until it stops before moving on. But once the bleeding has stopped and the area is clean, you can apply a gentle, relatively bland moisturizer to the area.
How to Use Green Tea for Acne
- Steep green tea in boiling water for 3–4 minutes.
- Allow the tea to cool.
- Apply it to your face with a cotton ball or spritz it on using a spray bottle.
- Leave it on for 10 minutes or overnight, and then rinse your face with water.
- Apply 1–2 times per day, as needed.
"It's best to let a pimple run through its life span," Rice says. Left alone, a blemish will heal itself in 3 to 7 days. Popped improperly, it can linger for weeks or lead to scarring.
It's tempting, but popping or squeezing a pimple won't necessarily get rid of the problem. Your pimple will disappear on its own, and by leaving it alone you're less likely to be left with any reminders that it was there. To dry a pimple up faster, apply 5% benzoyl peroxide gel or cream once or twice a day.
A pustule is a red, inflamed pimple that has a white head filled with white, yellow, or cream-colored pus that oozes out if the pustule is pierced or broken. Sometimes a brownish dot can be seen in the middle of a whitehead. This is known as the comedonal core and is debris clogging the pore.
Don't pop or squeeze pus-filled pimples
You can cause the bacteria to spread and the inflammation to worsen.Blackheads form when a clog or plug develops in the opening of hair follicles in your skin. Each follicle contains one hair and a sebaceous gland that produces oil. This oil, called sebum, helps keep your skin soft. Dead skin cells and oils collect in the opening to the skin follicle, producing a bump called a comedo.
Pimples can take as long as six weeks to go away, but smaller, single pimples may take only a few days to disappear. They aren't dangerous, but a doctor can help you treat long-lasting or painful pimples.
In many cases, the pressure from the swollen pimple will automatically begin to push out the pus. After you've popped the pimple, wash your face and hands a second time with antibacterial soap, and then apply a small amount of alcohol to the remains of the blemish—this will help keep bacteria from repopulating it.
If done safely, the extraction process can help the skin heal faster because you're draining the wound of pus. It can also be helpful aesthetically - popping a zit can help flatten the area so that it blends in better with the rest of your skin, while also making it easier to cover.
But once the bleeding has stopped and the area is clean, you can apply a gentle, relatively bland moisturizer to the area. You don't want to use anything “that's going to irritate the skin,” Dr. Elbuluk cautions, so it's best to avoid moisturizers that might also be used for antiaging or exfoliating purposes.
How to Pop a Pimple Safely
- Wash your hands well with soap and water.
- Sanitize a needle or pin with rubbing alcohol.
- Coming in at an angle parallel to the skin, gently prick the top of the whitehead with the tip of the needle. Don't go so deep that you draw blood.
- Wrap your fingers in tissue or cotton.
(Popping a pimple in other places like your cheeks, chin, or forehead could still lead to an infection, but the effects of that would likely only be scarring or pigmentation changes, since the those areas lack the direct blood supply route to your brain.) Yes, that means popping a pimple could actually kill you.
Squeezing a pimple can create an open wound, which can become infected by dirt from our hands and airborne bacteria. The veins can then form clots to contain infections, which puts pressure on the brain, leading to partial or full paralysis and, in some cases death.
Squeezing a pimple forces out a yellow liquid called pus. The trauma caused by the squeezing can also cause blood vessels underneath to burst, causing the pimple to fill with blood. Regular pimples occur when the skin's pores become clogged with bacteria, sweat, or dirt.
If acne scars are making you self-conscious or embarrassed about your skin, learn about treatments that can remove or reduce their appearance. These acne scar treatments are not cure-alls, and insurance usually doesn't cover them, but they do help to minimize the appearance of scars.
Common scar removal treatments include:
- Dermabrasion. This very effective scar removal treatment uses a high-speed brush or other instrument to resurface your skin and remove or reduce the depth of scars.
- Micro-dermabrasion.
- Chemical peels.
- Retinoic acid.
- Lasers.
- Fillers.
- Punch excisions.
- Skin grafting.
