There’s definitely worse things than blind pimples, but when you’ve got a corker of one standing to attention like a small, dormant skin volcano, it can seem like there is literally nothing worse. NOTHING. They hurt, they refuse to get to the point where they’re easy to pop, and they hang around for what feels like bloody years.
They’re also treated completely incorrectly by, well, most of us. Blind pimples are the source of plenty of red, bleeding pimple traumas – and even sometimes lead to full-on Staph infections like this horrific story we shared a few weeks back.
We asked Aussie skincare expert Melanie Grant to tell us exactly how we can bin these menaces, minus the bleeding/crying/general destruction.
DON’T. POP. IT.
For the love of god, DO NOT. This is the first and most important thing to remember. If you skim-read the rest of this, just take this one tiny morsel of information away OK?
“Squeezing a blind pimple will only cause inflammation, redness, swelling and possible scarring,” explains Melanie.
Yep, that’s right – scarring. If you try going at your pimple to make it pop, you run the risk of leaving a nasty red scar. Scars are way harder to budge than pimples, so just. Don’t.
INSTEAD, REDUCE SWELLING
We all want the redness and LARGENESS of a blind pimple to go down, and you can get this started by icing it. Then, draw that sucker out with a warm compress.
“The following day, place a face a towel in hot water, wring it out and apply to the area to stimulate blood flow and lymphatic flow. This will help to flush the area and draw the pimple to the surface,” explains Melanie.
If you need a quick fix for a night out or whatever, icing it and then going in with concealer will help reduce the size and redness a lot.
CLAY IS YOUR SKINCARE KEY
If you wanna speed things up with some skincare, masks and treatments involving clay – specifically kaolin clay, known for its detoxifying properties and ability to ‘draw out’ impurities from the skin.
“Apply a drawing mask with kaolin and zinc to further draw out impurities and finish with a spot treatment or drying lotion,” says Melanie.
Doing this at night can see a significant decrease in your gross spot, or see it come to a head. Excellent. Try NIOD Flavanone Mud or Eminence Hungarian Herbal Mud Treatment.
ONCE IT’S ERUPTED, BE CAREFUL
So your blind pimple is now a yellow-topped volcano? Don’t just stick your grubby fingers in there and release the pus.
“When you pop pimples you’re generally breaking the skin. The skin is our first line of defence against bacteria and pathogens so when this barrier is compromised we leave ourselves open to all sorts of nasties,” explains Melanie. “Always ensure you wash your hands and apply appropriate anti bacterial products whenever you’re extracting blemishes.”
Melanie also stresses – once again – you should only ever pop a pimple when it’s literally ready to go. None of this squeezing the life out of your skin, OK?
“I only recommend extractions when the blemish is literally sitting on the surface and only a gentle nudge with tissued fingers is required,” she stresses.
