Have you ever wondered why that pimple you’ve been squeezing for days still hurts and doesn’t seem to heal?

In the early stages of my career, I swore I would never tell someone to “pop their pimples,” let alone teach them how to do it! After all, it’s embedded in your brain as a student, and it’s a big no-no unless done by a trained professional.

However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the collectors were going to collect (no matter how much they told me they wouldn’t), and considering that I was one of them, how hypocritical of me!

So, just as an instructor would equip his students with the proper tools to do their job properly, I decided that the best way to deal with my ‘pickers’ was to arm them as well.

By no means do I encourage choosing, but since I know you’re going to choose anyway, I might as well teach you how to choose correctly. Besides, who wants to leave home and take on the world with a big white head!?

Why does it hurt in the first place:

The ‘white’ on the pimple is pus, hence its name, pustule. Pus is an indication of infection. The infection occurs as a result of an injury to the follicle, clogged with oil, debris and bacteria, the body triggers an inflammatory response and a ‘pimple’ is born.

NOTE: These steps are specific to a raised pustule (whitehead). If you have a papule that is a red, raised bump (sometimes painful too), WITHOUT a white head, LEAVE IT ALONE. It will eventually come to a head, or better yet, it will go away on its own. TIP: You can use a clay mask on the targeted area to help dry it out before it grows or forms a head.

* Trying to remove something that doesn’t have a ‘head’ will only lead to you breaking the skin, spreading bacteria and prolonging healing.

Steps:

1. WASH YOUR HANDS! There is nothing more disturbing to me than people picking at their faces in the car, in line at the supermarket, in public, period! Our hands are dirty and full of germs. Add that to an already infected pimple and you’re just asking for ‘the pimple that just won’t go away’ or worse, a permanent scar.

2. Wash your face with a mild cleanser, using lukewarm water.

3. Exfoliate your skin with a gentle scrub. Don’t rub the actual “pimple” too hard, use gentle circular motions. Chances are, if it’s sensitive to begin with, you won’t want to touch it too much anyway.

4. For this next step, ideally, you would wear disposable gloves or finger cots. If you have these to use great! If not, don’t worry! You can wrap your index fingers with tissue paper.

5. With fingers at an angle (DO NOT USE NAILS), find the point closest to the head of the grain so that your fingers are on either side. Proceed by slightly pushing down, then up in a lifting motion. Gently move your fingers back and forth in a massaging motion, rotating them up and down and side to side. Our follicles are never straight up and down, so squeezing them from different angles is the most efficient way to extract them. Do this until you feel that you have extracted it completely. Be sure to blot, DO NOT CLEAN, the liquid that comes out. Cleaning spreads bacteria.

6. Apply an antiseptic solution. Hydrogen peroxide works great! If you have an antiseptic toner, you can use that instead.

7. Apply Neosporin! Treat it like an open wound. This will help decrease the chance of reinfection and speed up the healing process.

Why it still hurts:

Two things may be happening here, and in some cases both may be happening simultaneously:

Randomly choose the beans that are not ‘ready’ or in the extraction stage. In this case, if you have stung it, many times you can spread the bacteria under the skin and create a secondary infection by opening the skin.

Choosing something that wasn’t ready to be extracted OR not extracting it at all. You will usually see pus, clear fluid, blood mixed with more clear fluid, and pus again. TIP: If you gently push it down and it still hurts; You didn’t get it all!

Sometimes it is unavoidable that the infection is deep in the pore and only part of it is what you see above. If you wake up the next day and see another white head in the mirror, this may have been the case. Repeat the steps above.

If you’re dealing with acne and not just the occasional breakout, see your dermatologist first!