I'm going to let you in on a family secret: My mother is obsessed with her children's ears being clean. For a long time, I thought it was totally normal for my mother to suddenly lean over mid-conversation and start shining a flashlight in my ear. So it came as no surprise to me when my class instructor informed us that we all probably have acne and congestion in our ears. What I was surprised to hear, however, is that it isn't my mom's job to extract them -- it's my aestheticians. "If your aesthetician isn't checking your ears, she's not doing a thorough job," says Holm.

Our ears contain pretty large pores, so it's easy for dirt and bacteria to get trapped in them -- especially if you're regularly sweating with your headphones in or talking on your cellphone.

No aesthetician has ever checked my ears, so I raise my hand and ask how I should bring up such a thing. "Just ask them," says the instructor. Apparently, it's in the job description.

One way to avoid a bad facial? Scope out the equipment. If she's got one of these high-tech gadgets, you know she means business.

The Mag Lamp: It shines light and magnifies your pores, freckles and scars to terrifying proportions, so the aesthetician can see just how badly you were lying about wearing sunscreen and never performing extractions on yourself.

The Woods' Lamp: This handheld lamp uses ultraviolet light to allow the aesthetician to zone in on areas of dryness, congestion and hyperpigmentation. Certain skin conditions that involve bacteria or infection will show up as bright white under the Woods' lamp. If you're infected, a good aesthetician will refuse to work on you, instead directing you to a doctor.

The Skin Scanner: A black box equipped with ultraviolet light that you stick your head in. When the light turns on, the sun damage comes out., meaning you see all of the freckles that are currently on your skin, plus the brown spots under the surface that might come at a later date. Dry skin is seen as white, while oily skin or clogged pores is orange. Aestheticians use these to diagnose skin conditions early on -- and perhaps to scare their clients into wearing sunscreen.

Recently, one of the newer members of our editorial team had the chance to get a facial for free. And she wanted to turn it down. Because that's weird, I cornered her, and she confessed: She was scared. "What if, um, the facialist is mean to me? Because I have some acne?" she asked. I had to set her straight. First of all, an aesthetician is never going to be mean to you. If she is, walk out. And secondly, if I know one thing after leaving IDI, it's that these aestheticians love extractions. The more, the better. Seriously, they live for them.

Proof: When we covered skin conditions, a picture of what are known as "solar comedones" flashed on to the screen. They're basically really, really deep blackheads that have become compacted due to overexposure to the sun or pollution. As Holm explained how they form, she turned to us, eyes wide. "How fun would that be to extract," she says, gesturing to the screen. I find myself murmuring agreement and nodding along with the others. "They smell really bad when they come out," she reveals. Instead of being disgusted, I start searching for YouTube videos of solar comedone extractions.

The takeaway: Don't Google "solar comedone extraction videos" unless you want to be horrified. Oh, and your aesthetician actually likes performing extractions. If she doesn't, she's in the wrong business.

If I believed every beauty magazine I read, I'd picture my pores as jacked up little cells, constantly doing reps of opening and closing. This, however, is not true. Pores don't work out. They don't open and close with heat and cold. It is easier to do extractions on pores when they're heated, but the instructor says that's because the sebum, dirt and oil inside is softer and comes out more easily. And once a pore is stretched out, it's not going to close back up. Meaning, if you've got a previously mentioned solar comedone-like situation going on, those hollows are going to fill back up with crap more easily than ever once extracted.

If you do have blackheads extracted that are leaving crater-like holes in your face, a good aesthetician will put you on an exfoliation routine -- it's the only way to prevent your pores from filling back up with the crud she just took out.