If you’re frantically looking up “how to get rid of a pimple,” we get it. There’s no such thing as a good time for a pimple to show up on your face. Of course, there are plenty of bad times—for example, the day before a date, event, or pretty much any kind of situation that requires you to show your face in public.
When confronted with an untimely zit, most men—problem solvers that we are—immediately resort to taking matters into our own hands, literally. However, as counter-intuitive and unsatisfying as it might be, any dermatologist or esthetician will tell you that trying to squeeze, pop, or claw a pimple out of existence is the absolute worst thing you could do.
“I always give the analogy of a toothpaste tube,” says Maya Thosani, M.D., double-board certified dermatologist at Modern Dermatology in Scottsdale, AZ. “If you squeeze the middle of a toothpaste tube to get toothpaste out, a little bit goes out towards your toothbrush, but the rest of it goes backwards. And that causes the inflammation to go deeper into the skin and cause more swelling and irritation.”
However, that doesn’t mean you have to just sit back and let nature take its sweet time. From topical spot treatments to pimple patches to face washes to at-home cold and light therapy devices, there’s a whole world of products to help you quickly and effectively target and eliminate unwelcome breakouts.
“There are definitely some things that we can do to reduce the inflammation and help it heal quicker,” says Hayley Gilbert, licensed medical aesthetician at JECT in Los Angeles, CA. “There’s not always that 100 percent guarantee that we’re going to have it gone in 24 hours, but we can do our best by using targeted products to heal it a little bit quicker than if we were to just leave it.”
“Trying to hit it from all angles is going to be really beneficial,” says licensed esthetician Mikaela MacLean. “Whatever products you have that aren’t counteracting each other, absolutely use the full arsenal.” Below are our top 10 products across a range of categories (and budgets) for those times when you need to get rid of a zit in a hurry—and a lot of them can be used together to speed things along even further.
LILFOX Chill Wands
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Photo: Dean Stattman
Stash a set of these esthetician-grade stainless steel wands in your freezer—it might just be the best thing you do for your skin this year. Skin specialists have long relied on cryotherapy to reduce inflammation, decrease puffiness, and generally improve skin’s tightness, firmness, and appearance overall. But it’s also one of the best things you can do to quickly minimize a pimple. “Cold is really great for calming down inflammation and getting things that are angry and red and painful and hot and burning and itching to just sort of calm down,” Dr. Thosani says. “It’s going to help with the redness, it’ll seal off the pores, prevent more inflammation, and it’ll be very soothing.” These wands from LILFOX retain temperature like magic, and the flattened ends are perfect for isolating your target.
How to use it: “You would want to ice intermittently throughout the day,” MacLean says. “The more you can ice, the better off you’re going to be.” She recommends leaving the wands in the freezer, and then giving one a quick rinse—to remove any ice crystals—before applying it to your skin. “If you can ice for like five minutes or so and do that a few times throughout the day, that would be ideal,” she says.
ZIIP Dot
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Photo: Dean Stattman
Another go-to tool in any serious esthetician’s toolbox, microcurrent therapy utilizes a low-grade electrical signal to boost circulation and reduce inflammation. When it comes to treating a breakout, microcurrent is especially handy for its ability to reduce swelling and clear out bacteria. Ultimately, it can also help improve the effectiveness of other products in your arsenal. “The absorption is going to be fantastic,” MacLean says. “So it makes sense to use it in conjunction with something topical that’s going to treat the spot.” This pocket-size microcurrent device from ZIIP packs a powerful punch and is clinically proven to clear spots and calm the skin when used together with ZIIP’s Clear Gel. And it charges via a USB-C port, making it perfect for home use and travel alike.
