Skin Care

6 Epic Pinterest Beauty Fails -- and How to Fix Them

Stop pinning immediately. These popular DIYs are ruining your skin

by Allie Flinn | 2 COMMENTS

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The DIY: Toothpaste as a Pimple Treatment Why you should skip it: It's easy to see why this DIY treatment is all over Pinterest -- pimples have a tendency to pop up at the most inconvenient time, with no spot treatment readily available. According to Fusco, though, using toothpaste to dry up a pimple overnight is nothing but a myth.

Nearly every dermatologist we spoke to said toothpaste as a pimple treatment is one of the worst things you can do to your skin. It dries the skin around the pimple, not the actual pimple, says dermatologist Jeannette Graf, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. "Some varieties of toothpaste can be caustic, and overnight contact can burn skin," adds Fusco. Meaning: Your pimple is going to be a whole lot angrier and inflamed than it already was.

What you should do instead: For those painful, below-the-surface blemishes, resist the urge to squeeze them. Instead, ice them. Graf says this will help constrict the pimple (and ease the throbbing pain.) You can also apply 1 percent hydrocortisone cream to a surprise pimple -- Graf says it's the closest thing to an in-office cortisone shot (which can magically erase cystic acne) as you can get.

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