Prevent Blackheads from Invading Your Skin!

For acne sufferers, there is a universal familiarity with the acne culprits known as blackheads. They’re annoying, tough to get rid of, and they’re always seemingly there. For a lot of acne sufferers, blackheads may be the lesser of three evils, when considering whiteheads and cystic acne in the grand scheme of potential outbreaks. Regardless, most people are unaware that if they suffer from the development of blackheads on a daily basis—they form exactly like a whitehead or a deep, nodulocystic pimple.

All About Blackheads

The only thing more common than blackheads are the common misconceptions that people have about how they develop. Most are under the assumption that blackheads are caused by dirty pores—that more routine face washing will keep the blackheads from forming, as if they’re an issue of personal hygiene. Such an assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Someone suffering from blackheads could wash and scrub their face until their skin was raw, and it wouldn’t necessarily stop the formation of blackheads.

Blackheads, also known medically as open comedomes, occur inside the skin, just as a whitehead does. In fact, the only difference between the development of a blackhead and whitehead pimple is the very outer layer of the skin, and the opening at the pore. The development of a blackhead occurs when the skin pore is open and susceptible to the air, thus the material making up the pimple becomes oxidized, hard and darker in color. The discoloration also has to do with the skin’s melanin having contact with the outside elements. While someone with poor hygiene habits may have a problem with blackheads, poor hygiene isn’t the cause behind their development.

Treating Blackheads

For the treatment of blackheads, it’s best to understand how a blackhead is formed. Quite simply, dead skin cells shedding from the epidermis combine with the skin’s bacteria and clog the sebaceous gland in a follicle. They combine with sebum, the naturally occurring skin oil and a whitehead or blackhead pimple develops. When the infection occurs deeper in the skin, cystic acne will develop.

To best treat blackheads, it is necessary to develop a quality skincare regimen. Beginning a skin care regimen with a face wash, or a combination face wash/exfoliation will greatly aid the skin in its natural shedding process.

A really effective topical treatment that can be used to fight off the development of new blackheads, as well as current inflammations is the popular benzoyl peroxide. Benzoyl peroxide is a common, over-the-counter acne treatment, but most people only use it as a spot treatment.

To get the best results, it should be used liberally. It can dry out the skin until the skin adapts to its effects, yet a quality moisturizer applied after the benzoyl peroxide cream dries will help to balance out the effect of the treatment.

Another manner of treating blackheads is through an open comedome extraction. This is most often performed by a dermatologist or licensed esthetician as part of a facial, with a tool known as an “open comedome extractor”. It can be quite effective once an acne problem has become manageable.