Tips on Busting Blackheads

Most of us to would have some form of blackheads on our face in varying degree of affliction (and those who don't - I am mighty jealous and want your skin!).

Unfortunately for me, I have plenty of these pesky black dots on my nose and a few on my chin and no matter what I do, I just can't get to rid of them permanently.

So whether it be through squeezing them with my fingers or using pore strips to remove them, I love extracting them out - gross I know, but nothing gives me more satisfaction than seeing them out of my skin.

While I do the regular squeezing of my nose to get rid of all the gunk, there is a greater risk of injuring skin when squeezing out blackheads so always I only do it after skin is softened (after a shower or a facial mask is a great time to do the dirty work).

With pore strips, if the skin is not prepped properly, the strip doesn't effectively picked up the clog pores and remove enough blackheads. I've recently discovered a method of using pore strip that is as good as manual squeezing without the risk of injuring skin.

The Safer Way of Removing Blackheads

1. Wash face thoroughly with water and your preferred cleanser. I use a glycolic cleanser like Invisible Zinc cleanser with 12% glycolic acid 200ml - RRP $35 (which can also be used as a treatment mask when left on skin for 5 minutes).

2. Apply a glycolic based mask (you can use the IZ product above for this step on the problem areas only). This is the key as gylocic acid breaks down the top layer 'glue' on skin that holds the dead skin cells on skin. I like the Alpha-H Liquid Gold Smoothing + perfecting mask 100 ml - RRP $63 and Endota's glycolic polishing mask 100ml - RRP $70

3. Wet nose area and apply Biore Cleansing pore strip 6 pk* - RRP A$5.69 as per normal.

4. Wait until the pore strip hardens to a plaster feel on your nose and then peel off skin. Hey presto - you should see a tonne more blackheads release and peeled off with the strip than normally would.


I use this gycolic acid treatment/pore cleansing strip combination method once a week to de-speckle my nose.

So there you have it -  maximise your blackhead busting powers with the use of glycolic-acid based products by un-clogging skin and prepping it for blackhead removal.

What are your tips to combatting blackheads?

* product was provided for consideration.