Whiteheads spoil your looks. So learn here how to get rid of whiteheads fast to have a blemish-free and pleasant looking skin. Whiteheads are more common with the people having oily skin. The individuals who are undergoing hormonal changes such as teenagers and pregnant women are more likely to suffer from whiteheads.
What Are Whiteheads?
Whiteheads are a form of acne. Just like pimples and blackheads, clogged pores can cause whiteheads too. The sebaceous glands produce oil to moisturize your skin. When there is excessive sebum secretion (like during teenage due to hormonal imbalance), oil builds up inside the skin pores along with dirt and dead skin cells. This trapped oil swells and turns into a white pustule and is known as a whitehead. They usually are of white or yellowish color, as they are not exposed to oxygen like blackheads. They generally occur on nose, cheekbone & chin and affect both women and men during teen years and beyond.
Unlike blackheads, which can be pushed out, whiteheads are closed within the pores. This can make treatment a bit more challenging. However, with proper treatment you can get rid of these pesky whiteheads. Read on here every thing about removing these ugly creatures.
A Word Of Caution
Touching your face not only passes on more pore-clogging dirt, oil, and bacteria from your hands, but it can also cause irritation. Picking and popping whiteheads simply won’t work, and it can do more harm than good – causing more pimples, infection and even permanent scarring. Your best bet is to explore other removal and preventive measures.
Getting Rid Of Whiteheads
The best effective way to get rid of whiteheads is to learn and follow good skin care practices to prevent whiteheads. And even if whiteheads appear on your skin, do not worry; you can remove whiteheads successfully by following these Home Remedies:
How To Prevent Whiteheads?
The most effective way to control whiteheads is to prevent whiteheads from occurring. Following are the preventive measures:
(i) Wash your hands before you touch your face: Do not touch your whiteheads. Dirt / Bacteria / Germs on your unwashed hands can aggravate your whiteheads problem. If you must touch your face then wash your hands first thoroughly with antibacterial soap.
(ii)Â Keep your face clean: Wash your face twice daily, in the morning and at night, with a cleanser to keep your face clean and thus minimizing the chances of oil and dirt building up in your pores. Pat your face dry; do not rub. Choose a cleanser that has alpha hydroxyl acids or salicylic acid to unclog the skin pores to ensure that you are less likely to have whiteheads and acne.
Useful Related Post: Home Remedies For Acne
(iii)Â Exfoliating / Scrubbing: Exfoliate at least once a week. Exfoliating is simply a gentle scrubbing of your skin. Use a facial scrub according to your skin type. Exfoliating is a must to get rid of whiteheads, as it helps in removing dead skin cells that clog your pores. To exfoliate your skin more effectively, it is recommended you steam your face before exfoliating to loosen the skin pores. For this follow following steps:
(a) Boil water in a small pan or pot. When the water is boiling, take it off the stove and place it down carefully.
(b) Sit down on a chair. Place the pan of hot water near your feet. Place a towel over your head, lean over the pan to allow the steam come up to your face. Let it steam for 5-10 minutes. Steaming your face leads to opening up of the skin pores, making it easier for your scrub to clean.
(c) After exfoliating, rinse your skin / face thoroughly with clean water, use a skin toner to close your pores. Alternatively, wrap cotton cloth around an ice cube and run it over your face to close the skin pores.
(d) An alternative to steaming your face is to dip a towel in warm water, squeeze it dry, and place over your face. Repeat it for a few times to make all your face warmed up and let your pores opened up.
(e) If you do not want to use an exfoliating product from the market, you can use oatmeal and curd mix as an effective natural exfoliant.
Useful Related Post: How To Clear Clogged Pores
(iv)Â Moisturize: Washing and exfoliating are good to keep your face silky and supple. But both can leave your skin dry. Apply moisturizer on your face so that your skin keeps the moisture and does not dry. Dry skin is also susceptible to whiteheads. Applying moisturizer on your face is good irrespective of whatever type of skin you have. We recommend an oil-free moisturizer with salicylic acid.
(v) Mask: You can use a clay mask. It is helpful in removing most dead skin cells. Alternatively, you can use homemade thick paste of baking soda and water. Apply it over your face, let it dry and thereafter wash your face thoroughly with water.
(vi)Â Remove Makeup Every Night: Makeup clogs your pores and contributes to occurrence of whiteheads / blackheads (For treating Blackheads Read How to Get Rid of Blackheads). Remove makeup with a good cleansing milk or baby oil and wash your face every night before you sleep to let your skin breathe.
How To Remove Whiteheads Manually?
We do not recommend you to remove whiteheads manually, as it can lead to infection and scarring. But if you want to do it follow these steps with care:
(i) Wash your hands with antiseptic soap.
(ii) To remove whiteheads, first you need to open your skin pores. For this wash your face and follow the same directions for steaming your face as mentioned above.
(iii) Before using extractor sanitize it with alcohol, especially the tip that you will use to extract your whiteheads. Position the extractor on the targeted whitehead, squeeze gently until the sebum / whitehead is extracted completely. If the whitehead does not come out easily, do not force it, as it can cause scarring and infection.
(iv) Wash your hands and message your face with ice cubes. This will act as a natural toner and helps prevent infection.
Natural Beauty Tips:
(i)Â Facial Products And Cleansers: Use facial products and cleansers with alpha hydroxyl acids, salicylic acid, or benzoyl peroxide for getting rid of whiteheads.
(ii)Â Use water based products instead of oil-based products: When choosing your cleansers, moisturizers, makeup and other beauty products do not use oil-based beauty products. They can cause oil build up and aggravate the whitehead problems. Instead of oil-based, use water based products.
(iii)Â Try to avoid too much of makeup, as much as you can. Makeup tends to clog your pores, which is the main cause of whiteheads and acne.
Natural Home Remedies For Preventing Whiteheads
(i) Drink eight to ten glasses of water a day, to flush out toxins and detoxify your system and skin. This will keep you hydrated and less susceptible to pimples and other types of acne.
(ii) Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Include those that are rich in vitamin A and E in your diet (including green leafy vegetables) to keep your system and skin healthy.
(iii) Rub gently lemon on your face. It works as antibacterial agent and the mild acid in it helps in opening pores and removing whiteheads.
(iv) Go for daily exercises. They not only help you flush out excess oil from your system, but will also help in oxygenating your skin to make it firm and healthy.
(v) Regularly change your bed sheets and pillows. This will help you in keeping your pillow cover bacteria free, which can otherwise aggravate skin problems, including whiteheads.
(vi) Keep your hair clean. The natural oil from your hair runs down on your face, which can cause of pimples / whiteheads around the hairline.
In case your whitehead problem persists, we recommend that you consult a dermatologist.
Follow the above outlined tips about How to Get Rid of Whiteheads on face, chin and nose to get a blemish-free, clear, charming and glowing face.
Excellent article. Very well written, and very accurrate. I used to moisturize daily when I wore make-up every day, but now that I don’t, I tend to forget, so thanks for the reminder.
You have some great tips here, very well explained. Looking forward to read more about your beauty and acne tips.
Very nice Article. We can use easily follow the regulations which you have given. Thank u very much.
Thanks Rupali.
Follow these easy and best home remedies for getting rid of your whiteheads fast and effectively at home…..
great article…!!! I am a boy, i don’t wear makeup as many girls do..still suffered by acne and whiteheads..i was looking for home remedy to get rid of it…great explanation..gonna apply it from today itself.
@ Praveen:
Thanks.
Apply these natural remedies regularly to prevent and control whiteheads on your face, nose, chin, cheeks and chest.,
Thanks so much!
Best, most informative info I’ve found. You’re a great writer with a strong &! friendly voice 🙂
Appreciate you!
I really liked the post but i have one question – i need to wash my face with a special soap or its enough to use only water?
Tnx anyway!!
Hi Aviv,
You can use any good quality organic face wash of your choice.
normal soap has been proven to work just as well as medicated soap and in some cases even better
Hi there to all, how is all, I think every one is getting more from this web page, and your views are fastidious for
new viewers.
There is no such thing as detoxing, the body does this naturally by urinating and going to the toilet. Drinking so much water is not recommended at all and will not make any difference unless you are dehydrated. It will definitely NOT help your skin in any way and was dis proven about 15 years ago by science.
Jules,
It does help. The body detoxes by urinating. By drinking water we urinate more, which means there are lesser impurities in our body ‘detox’. When we drink less water the colour of the urine is a dark yellow signifying an excess of impurities. It is pale yellow (healthy) when we drink right amount of water. It is not harmful to drink excessive water. You will see a difference on your face !
@ Gail,
You are right. Drink enough water every day in order to flush out toxins from your body that will detoxify your system and skin. This will keep you well hydrated and contribute to cure your pimples and other types of acne faster.
I am having White heads . I cant judge my skin type. So I want to know whether my skin is oily or dry skin? And which type of product should I use. oily or dry ?
@ Syed: To find out your skin type, follow these steps:
(i) Wash with a gentle cleanser and pat dry. Remove make-up. This cleans away oils and dirt that may have accumulated during your day, giving your skin a fresh start. Do not over wash though.
(ii) Wait an hour. During this time, your skin should return to its natural state, the characteristics of which will determine your skin type. Act normally and, please, don’t touch your face.
(iii) Dab your face with a tissue.
(iv) Skin falls into four types–normal, oily, dry and combination:
(a) Normal skin shows neither oil nor flaking skin. It should feel supple and smooth. If you have it, consider yourself lucky.
(b) Oily skin is characterized by the grease on the tissue. It is also common for a person with oily skin to have large pores and a shine.
(c) Dry skin may feel taut or show flakes of dead skin. It is associated with small pores. Moisturizing is important for this skin type.
(d) Combination skin is most common. It exhibits traits of all three of the above skin types. Usually, the skin is oily in the T-zone and normal to dry elsewhere.
Now you can use that category of products that are meant for your skin type.
I am facing the problem of whiteheads and it is like a small hard pimple on my face but it is not a pimple. And when i wash my face hardly i see there is a existence of hard white head which is making a hole on my face when it is going off, i am facing this problem since 3 yrs as i use to wash my face nearly 7 to 8 times a day with soap and from then my skin became rough and it leaded me to full of whiteheads on my face . Even i cant massage of scrub my face hardly as it causes more occurrence of whiteheads. Please suggest me through email to my given mailid. Thank you!
@ Rohit:
You did a grave mistake in washing your face with soap 7-8 times a day. You need to consult a good dermatologist now …
hii dear plzzz reply
i hv blackheads and Whitehead both and i need to remove ol tht frm my face as i dn hv time to go to parlor plzzz help me what to do and the best solution to get rid f thm as soon as pssbl pllzzzz reply i really need ur help…
@yashu:
For removing blackheads read this article which has best home remedies to get rid of blackheads:
https://naturalbeautytips.co/how-to-get-rid-of-blackheads/
This is a very nice and detailed article, I really liked the way you explained it. Removing blackheads is really very annoying job for me, it require continuous efforts and I am quite lazy. By the way well written, Keep it up. 🙂
I felt this is a very nice and detailed, I really liked the way you explained it. Removing whiteheads or blackheads is really very annoying job for me, it require continuous efforts and I am quite lazy. By the way well written, Keep it up. 🙂
For removing blackheads read this article:
https://naturalbeautytips.co/how-to-get-rid-of-blackheads/
Interesting read. Loved the exfoliation part
EXCELLENT REMEDIES. ITS GOING TO HELP A LOT
I have a question.. I’ve recently started using cetaphil and benzoyl peroxide 10% with an SPF sunscreen moisturizer. I been using it for 3 days already and for some reasons i got lots of white little pimples on neck and cheeks.. I need help. I dont know if my body is over reacting to it or if its just getting used to it?! And also how can i remove them?! Thanks for the help.
Your skin may be reacting to benzoyl peroxide. Stop using it and see if the whie pimples go away or not. It will take some time. However, if they don’t go away yo may consult a dermatologit / skin specialist.
A lot of these are good points, but not all.
First off, oil-free doesn’t necessarily mean better (even for acne-prone skin)! A quick online search will turn up plenty of information about using oils on your face; it all depends on the type of oil, as some are comedogenic and some aren’t. Look at the balance of linoleic acid and oleic acid in the oil as well, since linoleic acid can help break up the skin oil (sebum) clogging your pores, whereas oleic acid can contribute to clogging.
Also, your pores do not open or close; they aren’t muscles and they don’t change size in reaction to temperature. Again, search online and you’ll find multiple sites explaining this. Heat/steam helps soften and loosen the stuff that is clogging your pores, which is why steaming helps in the cleansing process. Heat is not actually making your pores bigger!
Your cleanser may be too harsh and may dry your skin out, which can then cause your skin to over-correct and produce too much oil. I always thought I had really oily skin, since my face would be almost dripping oil by midday, after washing and lightly moisturizing in the morning. Recently, in the winter, my skin has started getting quite dry (and flaky), but would still also be oily midday. I didn’t know what to do, then I stumbled upon information about moisturizing with oil. It’s counter-intuitive give how we’re told our whole lives that oil is so awful for your skin, but it has totally changed the game for me! Right now I use a combination of grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, and a bit of tea tree oil as my moisturizer morning and night. Three drops of that oil combination and my skin is perfectly moisturized, and I no longer have an oily face midday, because I’m actually hydrating my skin enough. Any heavier over the counter moisturizers I tried always left my face greasy, but using actual oil doesn’t do that, and it’s definitely not clogging my pores any more than they were already.
Bottom line, the advice above about keeping your face clean, cleaning your hands before touching it, and moisturizing are all good. Just pay attention to the cleansers and treatments you use, as they may actually be making your skin produce too much oil, making the situation worse! And oil is NOT an overall negative thing, if you use the right ones for your skin!
@ABP:
Thanks for sharing your experiences…….
Too much washing / cleansing your face can dry out your skin, causing it to overproduce oil to compensate. When it happens, it’s time to cut down the washing frequency.
Washing your face twice a day – morning and night – is enough. But if your face is super oily, consider washing your face in the afternoon also. Always wash your face after a workout to prevent acne breakouts. But for sensitive or very dry skin, you need to wash your face once only.
i have got white heads at my cheeks near nose and on chin area,how to get rid of them?i have tried steam but its of no use to me
@Alyssa:
Try the above natural remedies for 4-6 weeks, If you don’t see any improvement then check with a dermatologist. You may need some medication to remove whiteheads from your cheeks near nose and on chin area.
Thanks you.. I am going to try this.. hope it works !!
Can I use Aloe Vera gel for removing whiteheads?
Thanks in advance for this lovely article.
@Shefali:
Although, Aloe Vera gel does not remove the whiteheads directly but you can use aloe vera gel or extract after removing the dead cells and whiteheads from your face.
Apply aloe vera gel on the face after exfoliating and your normal cleansing routine. It will keep the skin moisturized, moist and soft.
I have lots of whiteheads on my nose, forehead, cheeks and chin area. I have oily skin or probably a combination skin. I wash my face twice a day with a homemade cleanser made of honey and lemon. I aslo make my own exfoliator of sugar, honey and yogurt, and I use it 2-3 times a week. I always steam my face before exfoliating. Still I haven’t seen much improvement on my face, maybe it’s because I haven’t done this for 4-6 weeks in a row, sometimes I get very lazy, haha. I’ll try better now, and do this every week, but if I still don’t see improvements, what should I do?
Maybe I’m using wrong ingredients, cuz honey is actually meant for dry skin, but I’m not using skin care products, because they contain chemicals which strip away the skin’s natural oils, and they’re very expensive too.
@Deina:
Hi….
Read the above post carefully and select those remedies that are meant for oily skin. Then apply those remedies regularly. Avoid using honey.
Also read these articles that are useful oily skin:
(i) https://naturalbeautytips.co/best-homemade-face-masks-for-oily-skin/
(ii) https://naturalbeautytips.co/how-to-get-rid-of-oily-skin/
(iii) https://naturalbeautytips.co/skin-careoily-skin/
I have same problem then try to use natural products like olive oil, milk, coconut oil and honey and the result is amazing.
I have only been using DermalMD Scar Treatment serum for about two weeks and i can already see signs of improvement on old acne scars. So far it’s good but I’ll write another review in 6 weeks.
nicely written
Hi , I have whiteheads on my forehead which I’ve had for a while and are not going I have used masks and everything , I never had this problem before is there anything I can do?
@ Sara:
Have you tried the above remedies?
Hi there,
I’ve created my own problem by gradually exfoliating everyday which has caused me to have a very oily forehead. I’ve been trying to cut back by not using it on Wednesdays and Sunday’s as I’m worried if I cut it out cold turkey I’ll breakout. Should I continue to eliminate days until I’m down to one or two days per week? I already a few whiteheads on my forehead that I’d like to get rid of, suggestions?
What face wash do you recommend? I currently just use a bar of dove soap, clinique toner and Clinique gel lotion.
Thanks
@ Ashton:
Read these tips relating to your skin problems:
(i) https://naturalbeautytips.co/how-to-exfoliate-your-face-at-home/
(ii) Oily and acne-prone skin needs special care to remove oils, dirt and makeup without harsh stripping and drying. Consider using these products that are specially formulated for daily use on the most sensitive of oily and acne-prone skin:
(a) Cataphil DermaControlâ„¢ Oil-Control Foam Wash
(b) Cataphil Gentle Skin Cleansing Cloths
What you say about what causes acne is incorrect. Unlike some black heads, it is not caused by clogged pores or bacteria from hands touching the face, makeup or not washing the face. It is caused by a hormonal imbalance (usually testosterone based) which increases the sebum oil production of your skin (rather than the clogging of pores by dead skin and bacteria like in the case of other spots). This is biologically well researched and is why there is medication which can decrease acne but not blackheads/whiteheads. Acne cannot be decreased by using less makeup, washing the face better or not toughing the face as it is not caused by any of these things in the first place and many people who have really bad acne, never touch their face and wash their face more than twice a day.
If anyone has problems with acne they should see a medical professional and try to resolve the issue from the inside out with a healthy diet and plenty of water, as well as what a doctor recommends. Treating it from the outside will not clear it up, though it may sooth irritation and reduce redness.
Treating black/white heads from outside works and drinking plenty of water, decreasing intake of oily/fatty foods and making sure enough essential vitamins and minerals are consumed each week will help to do wonders for any spot-related skin problem.
I would recommend anyone with such problems to go read up on the biology of skin and make some informed choices based on that.
Hello,
I have whiteheads on my nose. I think it happen because oily face more. Can natural home remedies resolving this problem. Thanks
Yes, home remedies can prevent whiteheads occurrence, and even can help remove them.
However, you can use these remedies also: http://acnetreatmentshq.com/treatment-for-whiteheads/
This article is very very helpful for those who is suffering ..
Thanx for help…
Even docter doesnt say this all…