Little White Bumps - Really Whiteheads?

Irritated by white bumps? Having little white bumps appearing on your face does not automatically mean you have acne problems. This may be little balls of protein, called milia. They sit just beneath the skin and have no pore, or hole in the skin through which they could escape.

Whiteheads (Comedones) in contrast are excess oil (the so called sebum), dead skin particles and other wastes that are trapped in clogged up pores.

Without going into medical details, miliae are proteins that have become trapped directly within the skin. Comedomes (whiteheads) on the other hand fill up pores with fat and old and dead skin particles.

To fight acne and whiteheads often exfoliation treatments are used. Using such an abrasive product or chemical to remove old skin particles and excess oil is beneficial. But scrubbing your face with chemicals and even soap too brutally and frequently will create milia.

This can be avoided, if you always keep in mind that exfoliation has to be gentle. And it helps to prevent whiteheads by removing excess fat, oil and skin debris, but it cannot prevent milia.

On the other hand, gentle exfoliation may help making the removal of the milia easier, because the skin trapping the milia becomes thinner. By the way this is the key to removing milia: as they have no escape route, those small bumps are trapped beneath the upper skin layers. So they should be extracted by an experienced professional like a dermatologist or aesthetician. Extracting milia yourself is possible, but involves risks.

Removing milia is not that easy and a little bit painful, but if you are confident with your courage: let's start.

First cleanse your hands and face. Then apply a cloth soaked with warm water to your face for a few minutes. The next step needs you to take a sterile needle to open the skin over the center of the little white bump.

Then use your thumbs (wrapped in a clean tissue) to squeeze the little milia's contents out. This must be done gently to avoid the milia's contents to be pressed deeper into the skin. After removing the white bump's contents completely, cleanse the are with an astringent.

Warning: Milia can be the symptoms of some other underlying illness or disease. So you should better consult a dermatologist if you are suddenly in the situation of having lots of milia. Also, if you try extracting miliae yourself, it may be troublesome to remove them completely, as the removal process may be quite painful.