Want the cheapest acne treatment? Grab ice. Yup, the same thing we all use for a twisted ankle, bruise, or hangover headache.

Now let’s apply this logic to acne.

Acne can show up as Comedones (“hardheads/blackheads”), papules (baby red bumps), pustules (“white-heads” or drama queens), and Cysts (pus-filled sacs under the skin, personally offensive ones). Basically, if your pimple is giving “Ow don’t touch me”, it’s the perfect time for some ice. 

Here’s what goes down under your skin: you get a clogged pore, the acne bacteria that normally floats harmlessly on top of the skin gets trapped inside, and then it thrives in the no-oxygen/oil party. This triggers the immune system’s “RED ALERT!”… literally. And then, need I say, the red alert beautifully pops up on our skin.

Then enter ice: Ice = less swelling, less blood flow, less pressure inside the pore wall. 

But why do we care about the pressure if it helps the pus pop from our skin? Glad you asked, when your body senses a ‘micro-infection’ i.e. acne, it will try to contain the area with a wall of protection. Yes, your skin will quarantine itself in a cyst. IF, your pore ruptures from too much injury/inflammation, cell walls will literally rupture and bacteria will spread into deeper skin layers causing scarring and sometimes irreversible damage.

So, in Layman’s terms, icing doesn’t “kill” the pimple. It calms down the immune freakout and keeps things from going DEFCON.

Blemish Babe Tip: TIMING MATTERS! Icing a pimple in the early stages will help the most when your friend is first brewing, so don’t wait until the 4th quarter to ice. 15 minutes max, on/off cycles, and always over a clean barrier (like a paper towel) so you don’t cold-burn the skin.