Don’t pick! Instead make your way to your nearest esthetician. Bratschi says, “often people use too much pressure or just push more dirt in to [pores], further inflaming them, not to mention cross contaminating other areas of the skin. It can also lead to scarring, hyperpigmentation and broken capillaries — all of which are difficult to later fix.”

If you squeeze a blackhead and it “turns into a giant scar, it can cost you thousands of bucks to fix it. So it’s much better getting someone for 30 bucks to clean up all the blackheads and call it a day,” Lancer adds. Blackhead removal is “best treated by a professional where the skin is prepped correctly, extracted correctly and importantly, treated afterwards to both stop inflammation and prevent them [from] re-occurring,” Bratschi says. Plus, professional grade products are stronger, more active and therefore more effective, and steam can be a vital tool in opening up those pores for deep extraction of those hard to shift blackheads. Speaking of professional products, an in-spa or office peel is a great way to “increase cell turnover and prevent blocked pores which help to leave the skin clear and decongested,” Bratschi says, so you may want to consider one.

Oh, and a little heads up, since no one bothered to tell me when I first went in for extractions, they kind of hurt. It’s still totally worth it, but consider yourself warned.