By Cat Juan Ledesma
It’s staring you right in the face: a big, red, throbbing bump whose pressure is building inside. You know that with just one squeeze from two little fingers, it will erupt and leave you feeling so relieved. But before you get down to it, here are some reasons why picking your blemishes shouldn’t be a regular part of your week.
- Your fingers aren’t the best tools: Fingers are big and bulky in comparison to a little acne bump on your face and risk making the area around your zit even worse. Your fingernails might also increase your scarring by slicing through the sensitive red skin around your pimple.
- You might be pushing the inflammation further in: Oftentimes, the pimples inflammation is much further down your pore than you can imagine and pushing on your skin to get the inflammation out might actually be pushing the infection deeper down where it can cause more damage to your skin and become a cystic pimple.
- You might make scarring worse: If your pimple is deeply embedded in the skin and without a head of white, we highly recommend you don’t try removing it yourself. These are cystic pimples whose infection is deep into the pore. These types of pimples can cause intense scarring and leave you with pits that might be permanent.
What your options are:
- Leave it alone: Many surface pimples go away on their own after a few days. Be sure to treat it with acne creams that have Salicylic Acid, Benzoyl Peroxide or Tea Tree Oil to help with drying and healing.
- Seek professional help: For deep, big pimples, we recommend heading to your trusty dermatologist who can inject the pimple with a steroid to help bring down the inflammation. They can also opt to remove it. A dermatologist might also put you on a program that will help banish those pimples for good!