To prevent or decrease the development of blackheads, you should:
• Keep creamy, greasy and oily cosmetic products away from your skin. • Cleanse your skin with a gentle water-based acne cleanser. • Avoid using bar soaps because the ingredients that retain their shapes have a tendency to clog skin pores and cause skin cells to flake off and clog pores even further. • Moisturize your skin but do it moderately because moisturizers can also increase skin oils. • Exfoliate to flush out dead skin cells which clog pores, and opt for products that contain 1% or 2% beta hydroxyl acids (BHA or Salicylic Acid) which penetrate through to the lining of the pores or alpha hydroxyl acids (AHA) which exfoliate only the surface of the pores. • Retinoids which are forms of vitamin A preserve the health of skin pores and therefore improve the flow of oils. Retinoids are usually found in prescription salves. • If your skin is oily, absorb excess surface oils with clay masks or cosmetic oil-absorbing paper.
Now that we understand what blackheads are, how they form and how to prevent them, let us take a look at how to remove them. After all, one or two may have sneaked up on us in spite of our most earnest efforts at preventive measures. The most commonly used method is by squeezing it out. And I know as well as you do that, although we've all been warned against it, we have all done it at one time or another. But let us now review the proper way to do it and, in fact, it may even be helpful to your skin to remove the "yucky stuff" because it relieves some of the pressure within the affected pores.
a) Begin the process by removing dead cells with a mild scrub or an exfoliate. b) Gently dry your skin with a soft towel. c) Soften the blackhead by treating it with a warm compress for ten to fifteen minutes. d) Dry your face again with a soft towel. e) To prevent slippage and cause a wound or a tear of the skin, wrap the tip of the two fingers that will be squeezing the blackhead with tissue paper. f) Apply even pressure to both sides of the blackhead by pushing down and then upwards. g) If this method fails after one or two attempts, do not pursue it any further for the time being or you will damage the skin and cause it to scar. You can always come back another day when the blackhead is more "ripe."