Ok so you were looking for how to get rid of blackheads on your chin, and all the articles were general advice, usually aimed at getting rid of blackheads on your nose. But the chin area is the second commonest place to get blackheads and they can be especially hard to remove in this area because the skin on your chin is different to that on your nose.

First, are you sure you definitely have a blackhead on your chin?

What is a blackhead?

They are usually straightforward to spot, because they look like black dots on your face, however, on the chin, they can be confused with ingrown hairs, so knowing how to tell the difference between the two will help you know how to treat them.

An ingrown hair often has redness around it, and the skin covering the ingrown hair swells as the hair grows. There usually isn’t an obvious opening (a pinprick-like black dot, for example) and it often resembles a regular spot or pimple, but black under the surface of the skin.

By contrast, a blackhead is a pore in your skin which opened and then dirt got inside it, making it look black. The black dots of blackheads are a lot smaller than the blackness of ingrown hairs and usually a blackhead doesn’t hurt. In a blackhead, it’s only the open part (the clogged pore) which appears black; there won’t be any blackness beneath the skin.

Just to confuse things, blackheads can sometimes get swollen but these are rare.

To understand how to get rid of blackheads on your chin, we need to look at what actually causes them and what you can do to get those pesky blackheads to go away!

What causes blackheads on the chin?

Like other types of blackheads, the ones on your chin are caused when a pore is blocked. There are many reasons this can happen but a toxic mix of several factors make it more likely.

It happens more in warm climates because warmth makes your pores open up. Then when you are out in the environment with pollution and tiny particles of dirt being blown around by the wind, these can get inside your pores.

Bacteria that lives on the surface of your skin, along with dead skin cells, also fall into the open pores, like sea pouring into a big hole on the beach.

Even if you wash your face regularly, you can still get blackheads on your chin. Bacteria can grow in external clothing, such as turtle necks or scarves, and on necklaces. When these brush against your chin, they cause the bacteria to get into the open pores. Your pillow can also be a culprit, if your pillow case isn’t changed often enough.

Microscopic food or drink residue from cups and bowls can get in there, making a physical obstruction but also feeding the bacteria and causing them to multiply. When you sneeze, a fine mist of bacteria can get onto your face, too.

And it doesn’t need to be a hot day for blackheads to form. Your pores open for a lot of different reasons, even in winter (although blackheads are more likely in summer and warm climates). Wearing a warm scarf, doing exercise, resting your chin on your hands, the warm air in your car’s heating system, all cause your chin’s pores to open up, making them vulnerable to blackheads.

Once the pores are open and things have gotten into them, the sebum your skin produces will mix with the dirt. Sebum is supposed to keep things clean, but when there’s an overload of environmental factors getting into the pore, the sebum begins to harden and stops it all getting back out. Because the pore is forced to stay open, it doesn’t close over like a regular spot.

Once the sebum has hardened, your skin struggles to naturally clear the blackhead. At that point, you have a newly-minted blackhead on your chin and your face needs help to clear the blackhead. It’s rare for blackheads to form in isolation; usually the conditions that form them will affect dozens of pores at the same time.

How can you get rid of blackheads on your chin?

There are a lot of articles telling you to use steam, that certain essential oils work, or that you need to pay for a pimple popper. The reason very few articles can agree on how to get rid of blackheads is they are all valid methods. One will work better for you than the others, everyone’s different!

Here are the best ways to get rid of chinheads:

1. Bioré charcoal pore strips. These are the big guns when it comes to clearing blackheads. These say they’re for oily skin but mine is ultra-dry and these are the best thing. If you can’t get a chin pore strip, cut down a nose one to get several chin blackhead strips. #moneysavingexpert
2. Steam. You can try sitting over a bowl of hot water, maybe with some tea tree essential oil in it, although I find that while this opens up the pores, it doesn’t actually get the stuff to come out of them, so I would combine this with another method.
3. A pimple popper. Not all pimple poppers are created equal. Some work quickly to clear your spot. Others are a useless beauty device that does nothing at all.
   Get a good one such as this one.
4. Wash the area with a tea tree or witch hazel face wash. For natural results, tea tree and witch hazel are both good at helping with clogged pores. Witch hazel is an astringent which has been used as a toner for decades and tea tree is a natural antiseptic. Dab a bit on a cotton swab and swish over the affected area 1-2 times per day.
5. Use an exfoliating AHA or BHA scrub, such as one containing salicylic acid. This is a great prevention, too, especially if you find a good scrub. I like the St Ives Apricot scrub which contains salicylic acid and the Nip+Fab glycolic fix one, which contains glycolic acid. To use, massage in circular motions with your fingers. Exfoliating scrubs containing these ingredients are really good for clearing problem areas such as the chin where you can really get those circular movements right. I’d recommend only using them 1-2 times a week once you’ve cleared your skin because they’re strong exfoliants.
6. Use an electrical device. These are great for prevention and cure. The Clarisonic is a good option if you have the budget, otherwise I love my infrared sonic skin peeling tool, which uses infrared light and ultrasound to “bounce” the dirt right out of pores.

And the things that don’t work…

There are a lot of things that truly do not work to get rid of chinheads, but people keep doing them. Here’s a rundown of the worst offenders:

1.. Don’t squeeze a blackhead. They will splodge under your skin and spread, turning into horrendous spots.

2. Don’t scratch them. I always thought this was a given, then I met this guy who did this every time he had a spot. And he wondered why he was inundated with them. *facepalm.

3. The toothpaste method does not work for blackheads. That’s the one where you put a dot of toothpaste on the spot and leave it overnight. As the toothpaste dries, it sucks the gunk out of the spot. Doesn’t work for blackheads of any type or any location. This is good for other types of spots and pimples, though.

4. Don’t use a needle to dig them out. My mum used to swear by this. She had permanent scarring from it, and pore damage. Bad plan.

5. Don’t use oil-based products (except tea tree oil in small amounts) on the affected area until you’re sure the blackheads have gone away and when you use them, make sure your pores aren’t open or they’ll fill up again.

6. Don’t wait to take action against blackheads on your chin. The longer they are there, the more likely you are to have permanent damage from them. The pores can get stretched to a point where they’re always big and open.

7. Silver powder. Total pseudoscientific nonsense that’s been doing the rounds since the 90s. Don’t waste your money.

That’s basically all you need to know about blackheads on your chin. Here are my product recommendations for getting rid of blackheads.

Top products to get rid of blackheads on chins:

1. Biore charcoal pore strips (cut up nose strips to get strips for your chin as they don’t seem to sell them separately).
2. St. Ives Apricot Scrub
3. Nip + Fab Glycolic Fix Scrub
4. Witch hazel toner (alcohol free)
5. Tea tree oil. Use this sparingly as it’s potent stuff!

Top electrical devices to get rid of blackheads:

1. An ultrasonic skin peeler and blackhead remover. These work really well to clear the skin. I recommend the Gugug Skin Spatula which is a steal at $21.99. I love mine so much and I use it once or twice a month as prevention.
2. A complete skin cleaning device. The Clarisonic Mia is the gold standard but they’re very expensive and the Olay Pro X is a brilliant dupe (I used the Olay Pro X weekly to clear my husband’s problem skin in the 12 weeks before our wedding day… #guyfacial) and at $39.99 it’s less than half price of the latest Clarisonic tools.
3. A specific blackhead sucker. The ones with blue light work well to kill the bacteria. A great choice is the Lonove Suction Blackhead Remover with Blue Light which is currently $24.99 although prices fluctuate.
4. A facial steamer such as this one will focus the steam better on your face than a bowl of hot water, and as a bonus, it comes with a complete set of pimple-popping tools too! If $26.99 is too much to spend on something like this, a bowl of hot water will still help.

Got any blackhead-killing tips? Share them in the comments!