Whiteheads and Blackheads: A Week-by-Week Plan Without Squeezing

How many times a day should you wash, and how?

Morning and evening is enough. What matters more than the number is whether the lather reached the creases beside your nose and under your chin, and whether you rinsed it off well. Guidance from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) says frequent washing can backfire, and twice a day is plenty.

Your palms don’t reach the creases beside your nose easily, so push lather in with your fingertips. If you want to rinse off sweat at lunch on a gym class day, use water only, no cleanser, and do your evening wash as usual. If you’re someone who wears sunscreen to work every day, lock in a double cleanse in the evening, with a first step that takes off sunscreen. The KDCA material also says double cleansing helps on days you wear sunscreen or makeup.

Why limit exfoliating to once or twice a week?

Exfoliating isn’t a case of more is better; it’s a step where irritation adds up, so this guide caps it at once or twice a week. The Korean Dermatological Association warns that overusing exfoliating products puts physical irritation on the skin and can make things worse.

Setting the days ahead of time keeps you from scrubbing every day on a whim. If Tuesday and Friday are your exfoliating days, write down any day that week you felt tightness or stinging, and skip Friday. The KDCA also advises avoiding scrubs because they can weaken the skin barrier, so leave out anything that rubs with grains.

Why shouldn’t you use pore strips or your nails to pull them out?

Pulling out one visible dot doesn’t change how things go, and it easily leaves nail marks and redness. The Korean Dermatological Association explains that extracting blackheads (open comedones) has no effect on the course of acne and is done only for cosmetic reasons.

Be even more careful with whiteheads. The same source treats closed comedones as the stage before pus-filled acne, and the KDCA says squeezing them yourself can leave them redder, more swollen and scarred. What you can see isn’t the whole picture, either. In a 2018 study that examined 15 adult women with acne under a confocal microscope, follicles in normal-looking forehead skin had a larger diameter, and of the 791 follicles observed, 68% had a thickened border and 65% had built-up dead skin (hyperkeratinization) along the border, more than in the control group (grade B, small study).

What should you compare after 4 weeks?

Look at your Sunday photo from week 1 and from week 4, and see whether the areas where dark dots and white bumps cluster have spread or stayed the same. One month is this guide’s unit of comparison; comedones take time to show visible change, so don’t judge after 1 or 2 weeks.

Research gives a reason to look in monthly units, too. A 1998 crossover randomized trial in people with mild acne measured microcomedone size 1 month after applying linoleic acid: where it was applied, size decreased by almost 25%, while the sites given placebo showed no change (a raw-ingredient test, unrelated to any finished product). The Korean Dermatological Association explains that lower linoleic acid in sebum is tied to the process that thickens the follicle lining.

Weekly care chart

Once you’ve done 4 weeks, line up the four Sunday photos and also check whether the weeks you touched your face most match the weeks the photos looked worse.

When should you bring a dermatologist in?

• If the white bumps turn red, swollen and painful, or start filling with pus, see a dermatologist.
• The KDCA treats no improvement after 6 to 8 weeks of steady care under a doctor as the point to change approach. If nothing changes after one more month past your 4-week comparison, get a dermatology consultation.
• If itchy red bumps spread where you used sunscreen or a new product, have it checked to see if it’s a different skin reaction.
• If spots you squeezed or picked are starting to leave marks or dents, talk to a specialist.

The research in short

• In a 1998 crossover randomized trial in mild acne, microcomedone size decreased by almost 25% over 1 month at the sites where linoleic acid was applied, with no change at the sites given placebo (raw-ingredient test, unrelated to any finished product).
• In a 2018 confocal microscopy study of 15 adult women with acne, of the 791 follicles observed in normal-looking forehead skin, 68% had a thickened border and 65% a hyperkeratinized border, more than in controls.
• The Korean Dermatological Association explains that extracting blackheads (open comedones) doesn’t affect the course of acne.