- Jess, I am addicted to watching
these pimple popping videos.
Have you seen these?
- Ugh. That's so gross.
- I know, it's so nasty!
- That's so bad for you.
They shouldn't be doing that.
- Why would popping pimples be bad for you?
- Well, let's
- Science the - Science the
(bleep)
out of it! out of it!
(mood music)
- I personally don't even know exactly what a pimple is.
- It's like a traffic jam under your skin.
- Ugh. God!
- Basically, so, I mean
(laughter)
- So sorry I asked.
- The most common types of acne are
the result of excess sebum under the surface.
Now sebum is an oily substance that usually moves up
and out of the pores
and lubricates your hair and skin
but sometimes you can produce too much sebum,
which creates a traffic jam for oil
and bacteria under the surface.
Now, it can take days or even weeks for that bacteria to
trigger an infection that eventually
makes its way to the surface
but once it does and you get a pustule.
- Pimple you mean.
- Pustule's a technical term.
- Yeah, well here on the streets we call them the pimps.
(laughter)
- If you suffer from acne, you're not alone.
It's the most common skin disease in the U.S.
An estimated 80 percent of Americans will experience
some form of acne by the time they turn 31.
- Why am I only getting pimples on, like,
my face and face area?
Why don't we get them on our arms and hands
or I mean, I guess I kinda got them on my butt too.
- It's no coincidence that pustules tend to pop up
all over your face
because that's where you have
the most oil secreting sebaceous glands.
Other common places where sebaceous glands
are frequent are your shoulders, chest and back
but one place you will not find pimples
is the palms of your hands
and the bottom of your feet
because there aren't any sebaceous glands in that area.
- Maybe it's a psychological thing.
I really don't know why.
But it just, kind of, feels good to pop a pimple.
It's like picking your nose or spitting.
It just, like, ah, right?
- Popping pimples may feel good
but it's actually really bad for you.
One of the main reasons is
because if you use your fingers to pop a pimple,
which is what most of us do,
you have bacteria on your fingers
and you can introduce that bacteria into the pimple,
which is already infected and make the infection even worse.
Another reason is that by touching your face
you can deposit other oils and dirt onto the skin
which can block hair follicles
and potentially form more pimples, elsewhere.
- Besides popping them and then maybe coming back later
in different or nearby spot, having reddish skin
what else is so bad about popping pimples?
- When you pop a pimple what you're doing
is damaging the skin tissue around it.
Now you may not immediately see harmful effects
but what you're doing is, over time,
if you continue to damage that skin tissue
you're deteriorating the proteins that repair the skin,
ultimately disrupting the healing process.
So, it may take a few seconds to pop a pimple
but ultimately you could end up with a permanent scar.
- So, I understand you're supposed to wash your face a lot,
which I totally don't,
but then I've also heard that doesn't work.
- You can't, you know, take control of you sebaceous glands.
- But you can take control of the epidermis,
the outer layer of your skin.
So, what do you wanna do?
You wanna wash those off.
But you can't wash it too much
because it can trigger your immune system,
which then, could actually, ramp up more sebum production,
which creates
- Woah, weird!
- So, don't wash too much.
- Don't wash too much
- Don't exfoliate too much.
- Not a problem.
- So dermatologists usually recommend twice a day.
In the morning and before bed.
- Wash your face twice a day?!
Who the hell's doing that?!
Alright, what about, like, if I got like, a syringe
and kind of just, like,
(clicking)
and like
- Oh, no!
No one should be popping your pimples,
except for dermatologists, period, that's it!
They have, they know how to get
rid of all that infection that's under there.