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There’s never a good time to wake up and find a new blemish on our face but there is a good time to learn how to deal with one and that’s before the problem arrives! Bring the tools of how to treat and heal a blemish to your beauty arsenal, and how to conceal a pesky trouble spot like an industry pro. Breakouts won’t stand a chance against this!
1. Get To Know The Problem
It helps to know what kind of blemish we’re actually dealing with when our skin breaks out. The majority of blemishes fall into two common types: pustules and cysts. A pustule is a type of blemish that starts as an infection in a pore that gradually comes up to the skin’s surface as a whitehead. A cyst is a type of blemish where the infection stays embedded in the skin’s pore instead of rising to the surface, causing inflammation and irritation. Our bodies are specially equipped to fight off infections and when we see a whitehead form it’s actually our skin’s way of eradicating an infection. For cysts, though, our bodies slowly defeat the infection by reabsorbing it over the course of a few weeks.
2. How To Speed Up The Healing Process
Treatment of a blemish is very different depending on whether we’re experiencing a pustular or cystic breakout.
For pustules you can use a warm compress to make sure the pore is open and keep the area clean, but resist the urge to immediately treat the affected pore with product or pressure until the whitehead appears. Spot-drying treatments can dehydrate the area prematurely and cause flakiness that can block the pore’s opening and trap the infection further. Once the whitehead appears you can use an extractor tool to cleanly remove the infection and then follow up with a medicated spot treatment.
For cysts the most important thing to know is to not squeeze on the affected pore to remove the infection. Cysts don’t behave like pustules and squeezing will only aggravate the infection. Try a course of treatment that uses ice to help reduce inflammation and redness as needed. You can also use a salicylic acid exfoliator to open up pores for an antibacterial treatment, like a low-percentage Benzoyl peroxide, that can help to fight off the infection.
3. What Works Best For Concealing Blemishes
Even beauty experts get blemishes from time to time so we can be sure that there are good ways to temporarily hide a blemish. To start we’ll want to be sure we’re keeping the area clean. Our fingers easily transmit bacteria and oil so try to stay hands off as much as possible with makeup application. Q-tips, makeup sponges and brushes can help us spot treat and apply concealer cleanly. If the affected area is dry and flaky a small dose of moisturizing ointment, applied as described above, can help to reduce inflammation and give us a smoother surface to work with.
To cover up a blemish so that it blends in as naturally as possible we will absolutely want a primer. A primer like the one in the Dermablend Cover Creme 4-piece Kit will help create a mask over the blemish that our concealer can cleanly glide over too. For pustular blemishes we can usually get by with using a primer and foundation for coverage but for cystic blemishes that tend to be more inflamed we may opt for a primer + concealer. A concealer like the Dermablend Quick-Fix Concealer is thicker and creamier than a foundation allowing for maximum opacity in its coverage. Carefully blend the edges where your concealer meets your regular foundation to disguise the trouble spot.
What’s your tried and true method for treating and hiding blemishes?