In case you’re coping with an enormous fats zit and want you can simply zap it away together with your thoughts, contemplate protecting it with an zits patch (a.ok.a. a pimple patch) as a substitute.
Some pimple patches are offered as a way to guard the pores and skin whereas it heals, whereas others include thrilling claims that they will flatten breakouts in a single day. In idea, these helpful little stickers must be the zits remedy we rightly deserve, however it is best to mood your expectations when you’re in search of a blemish silver bullet. Whereas zits patches are an ideal instrument so as to add to your skincare routine, right here’s what dermatologists need you to know earlier than giving them a strive.
How do zits patches work?
As SELF beforehand reported, pimple patches are principally hydrocolloid bandages minimize into zit-size stickers. Additionally utilized in blister dressings, hydrocolloid bandages are nice for any wounds or lesions that leak fluid whereas they heal. They take up that extra moisture and shield the world from exterior contamination—say, from grime or micro organism—and each of those results might be useful when you’ve a contemporary pimple.
What are the advantages of utilizing an zits patch?
Making use of an zits patch to your pores and skin kinds a protecting barrier round your breakout, Rebecca Marcus, MD, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist in Dallas and the founding father of Maei MD, tells SELF. This basically creates a seal that retains the world clear whereas it heals. Plus, the bodily barrier might assist stop you from choosing on the pimple, which is necessary if you’d like it to go away ASAP. “Choosing results in additional harm to the pores and skin barrier and elevated therapeutic time,” Dr. Marcus says, including that it additionally will increase your threat of zits scars and hyperpigmentation or darkish spots. And when you use your naked palms to choose at—and even pop—a zit, you’re growing your threat of a possible an infection, Lauren Penzi, MD, a board-certified dermatologist at Medical Dermatology and Beauty Surgical procedure in New York, tells SELF.
The absorbency of an zits patch may also come in useful when you’re coping with swollen, infected breakouts, Dr. Penzi says. By drawing extra oil and moisture away out of your pores and skin, it may possibly assist cut back the puffiness of your pimple total. For that cause, she recommends solely utilizing a patch after your pimple has a visual head (fairly than placing it on a closed comedone).
Dr. Penzi factors out that some pimple patches additionally include acne-fighting components like pore-clearing salicylic acid and antimicrobial tea tree oil, although it’s unclear how a lot of a distinction these further lively components really make when used on this type.
What’s the simplest means to make use of zits patches?
It is best to at all times apply an zits patch to scrub, dry pores and skin. Once more, they create a seal that slows (or completely blocks) airflow to that space and traps no matter’s on the floor of your pores and skin on the time of software, together with grime, lifeless pores and skin, and oil that may exacerbate current zits (or set off new breakouts).