However, few people follow this. In general, you can gently pop a whitehead pimple once, but don't try to draw more out again later. Doing so can lead to scarring. You should never pop a pimple that does not have a whitehead or is deep under the skin.
While waiting is never fun, it's worth it when it comes to pimple-popping. Basically, what happens if you don't pop a whitehead is that it goes away on its own, usually in 3 to 7 days.
If the pimple comes to a head, you can gently apply downward pressure on either side of the pimple for one to two seconds. If you're using more than a little bit of pressure and nothing comes out, then the pimple is probably not ready to be popped, says Dr. Engelman.
Pustules are a type of pimple that contains yellowish pus. They are larger than whiteheads and blackheads. Pustules appear either as red bumps with white centers or as white bumps that are hard and often tender to the touch. In many cases, the skin around the pustules is red or inflamed.
Apply a warm compress
If it's superficial enough, warm compresses could help the pimple come to a head, allowing it to rupture and expel the pus that's causing pain, says Hadley King, MD, board-certified dermatologist in New York City.
Applying a warm compress can help to treat a blind pimple. The heat can open up pores, which may draw the pimple closer to the skin's surface and create a head. The formation of a head enables the sebum, cells, and bacteria to exit the skin. The heat from the compress can also help to relieve pain.
Blackheads, or open comedos, are clogged pores that are filled with dead skin cells and oil, not dirt or grime as myth may suggest. The blackish portion of a blackhead — aka the sesame seed — is due to the oxidation of the dead skin cells and oil when exposed to air.
Nodular acne is a severe type of acne. It causes hard lumps or knots (nodules) to develop deep under your skin. The nodules start below the surface and appear on the skin as red bumps. These bumps usually don't have a whitehead or blackhead at the center.
Can I pop a blind pimple? Never try to pop or squeeze a blind pimple. Doing so pushes the oil and bacteria deeper, causing more inflammation and increasing the risk of infection. Picking at or squeezing a blind pimple can also lead to acne scars.
You can cause a blood-filled pimple by damaging blood vessels around an existing pimple. This often happens when you pop, squeeze, pick or over-exfoliate a pimple. Blood-filled pimples usually heal on their own if you prevent further damage and keep the area clean.
Bacteria can enter the skin pores and get trapped along with the oil and skin cells. The skin reaction causes swelling deep in the skin's middle layer (the dermis). This infected, red, swollen lump is an acne cyst.
If you have a painful pimple, you have inflammation to blame. Whether they're on your face, back, ears, or some other part of your body, inflammation causes pain and tenderness because nerve endings near the inflamed skin notice that something isn't right (Tan, 2018).
Wait until your pimple has a firm white head. That means the pus is close to the surface and ready to be drained.
With pustules, your body may be able to slowly absorb and break down the pus without treatment. The pustule may also drain naturally, eventually shrinking and drying up. Smaller abscesses near the surface of the skin may also do the same, but larger ones or those inside the body most often needed to be drained.
If you have a hard pimple under your skin that won't go away, the odds are you have a cyst. Like with any blockage, a clogged pore can cause real inflammation, particularly of the hair follicle, making for hard and painful pimples.
Those disagreeable-looking white, round things are milia. Also called milium cysts, milk spots, oilseeds, or pearl acne, no matter what you call them, milia are decidedly unattractive, small or moderate-sized, round or dome-shaped, white or yellow bumps that are easily visible beneath the skin.
"Clear fluid is just oedema – fluid that accumulates in the area due to redness and swelling. It is not pus, and it is not an infection."
And considering the border of your lips are thinner and way more sensitive than other places on your face, it's possibly even the most painful.
Your pimple will disappear on its own, and by leaving it alone you're less likely to be left with any reminders that it was there. To dry a pimple up faster, apply 5% benzoyl peroxide gel or cream once or twice a day.