3 replies to this topic

[Evelynne Smith]

So, I'm now pretty much clear of inflamed acne (yay!), but several blackheads have developed instead and aren't going away (and sometimes get inflamed themselves). The blackheads are working their way out, but it's been over half a month and it's getting kind of annoying. I never had a problem with blackheads before, so I'm confused to why they started developing once I got clear of inflamed acne. I've looked around on the internet and message boards, but I'm still kind of confused about blackheads.

I guess I have two questions:

1) How do you get rid of blackheads. Do treatments (like BP) that work on pimple/whiteheads not work on blackheads? I don't want to yank them out since my skin marks really easily.

2) How do blackheads form and why is it different from how pimples form? Maybe something I added to my routine to get rid of the pimples created the blackheads...or something...

[Fruitloops]

I'm sort of on the same boat as you, although I still have a bit of inflamed acne, it's mainly blackheads and whiteheads. I know salicylic acid works well with drying up and unclogging all of those nasty blackheads. My dermatologist also recently put me on retin-a, a tretinoin gel that's supposedly suppost to help unclog pores too. As far as I know bp won't be as affective with blackheads, it might however prevent them from turning into full blown pimples. I wouldn't reccomend messing with them, as you'll probably turn them into full blown pimples if your not careful, or, depending on the size of the blackheads, leave behind big huge pores.

I don't know much about blackheads but I know that they form when a large pore gets blocked by dead skin cells, and the black stuff isn't actually dirt it's the sebum. My best idea to prevent these is to wash your face often (as you probably already do) and exfoliate as often as your skin allows you to. You might also want to try a face mask to draw out the blackheads, I know that the mint julep mask is popular and basically peels out the blackheads.

I am actually very curious about if I added something to my routine to cause the blackheads/whiteheads, since I'm so used to havng just inflamed acne and no blackheads... I hardly recognized that I did indeed have blackheads. Maybe all the antibiotics and acne medication are preventing bacteria to grow and make the pimple/blackhead worse? Lol, idk, just a guess.

[rubberduck]

Blackheads form from underneath with sebum. And I've found exfoliaters are good for getting rid of black heads, try it.

[Timehealsall]

did you ever take antibiotics?