Why you have blackheads and how to avoid them?

One of the most prevalent skin characteristics in young skin with a higher sebum content is the presence of blackheads, especially in the so-called “T-zone” of the face, which includes the forehead, nose and chin, places where oil and other residues accumulate more easily. Let’s see what causes them and how we can try to minimise them through our cosmetic routine.

We often tend to talk about blackheads or open pores interchangeably. What we mean when we use these colloquial terms is those small circular or oval dark-tinted structures that we can see when we get very close to the mirror and that make us want to get rid of them by applying a little pressure with our fingers.

What these blackheads really are is nothing more than dilations of a hair follicle in which, over time, a mixture of sebum produced by the glands housed in the follicle and the skin’s own keratin accumulates. Due to its superficial location and its consequent contact with the oxygen in the air, as happens with any grease in these conditions, it oxidises. It is this oxidation that gives them a dark colour that invites us to call these structures by their name, but if you have ever made the mistake of handling one, you will have seen that this colour only appears on the external part of the structure, the rest being a yellowish colour typical of the natural sebum produced by our skin.

Given the reasons why these structures originate, if your skin has a tendency to accumulate grease inside the pores and clog them in the form of blackheads, the best advice we can give you to prevent them from appearing and make the ones you already have disappear are the following:

• Take care to properly cleanse your face. Remember that dirt, skin debris and sebum generated over the hours tend to accumulate in the pores, so proper cleansing day and night with sebum-regulating products is the best way to prevent pore clogging.

• Use ingredients with a keratolytic function such as glycolic or salicylic acid. By breaking down the keratin that covers the pore, they facilitate the exit of the pore’s contents and can help it to disappear.

• Exfoliating products can also help in your routine to rid your pores of this sebum and keratin mixture.

• Believe it or not, the inclusion of antioxidants such as niacinamide in your routine reduces pore discolouration by preventing the oxidation of the oil they contain.

• Above all, avoid handling them. This often makes them worse because our hands also harbour grease and dirt, which can infect them and cause them to develop into pimples or blackheads. If you think you need to go a step further to remove them, the best thing to do is to go to a beauty centre and have them removed by a professional with a deep facial cleansing.

Remember that if you are concerned about blackheads, you only have to indicate it in our diagnostic questionnaire so that your cream contains those ingredients that can help in your routine both in their prevention and their elimination.