Turns out we’ve been dealing with blackheads wrong and we are SHOOK!

We all get them.

Well... we thought we all got them, turns out most of us don't even know what blackheads are! In episode 42 of Girls With Goals, 'The Skin Nerd' Jennifer Rock joined us in studio and gave us a right talking to about all things  'schhhhkin' related. To hear how we're all doing it wrong (ALL OF US) listen in at 35.04 below: Straight out the gate I learned that face wipes are a no-no. That tidbit, combined with the fact that in my thirty one years I've never had a skin care routine, made me the perfect candidate to SHUT UP AND LISTEN. Jennifer Rock is the name on everyone's lips in the world of skin care and she's been unapologetically smashing up the industry since starting her online consultation business just one year ago. In her words, skin 'is an organ from top to toe' so we should be taking care of it. YES BOSS. A listener of the show got in touch to ask THE skin care question we all want the answer to. Blackheads... those tiny black demonic spots from hell. You scrub and you scrub and they just keep popping up, Louise asked what we can do to rid them from our lives forever:

'How do you get rid of blackheads for good? There's so many products on the market that claim to get rid of them but, let's be honest, they don't work, so does it mean getting a ton of facials and spending all of my earnings on those forevermore? I really don't want to... so what's the secret?'

So, perhaps this is common knowledge (?)  but having admitted to barely dipping my toe in the skin care world,  I'm not ashamed to admit that I had NO idea that those tiny, black, demonic spots from hell are more often than not, sebaceous filaments and not the dreaded blackheads! Jennifer explains much better than me:

'There's two things you'll see... there are blackheads and then there are sebaceous filaments and most people confuse the two. A blackhead is a little plug of black and you squeeze it and out comes a little hard waxy solution, most people don't have those, most people have sebaceous filaments.'

So, what exactly do these filaments look like? Jennifer to the rescue once again:

' You know when you look at a strawberry and they have little black dots? That's what most people have, they're usually caused by makeup or not cleansing properly or not looking after your skin or putting the right ingredients inside the body.'

Ok, so now we know the difference between a sebaceous filament and a blackhead, how do we combat them? Jennifer says that a consult with a skin care expert is always the best option, aside from that there is one magic ingredient that works a treat on blackheads and filaments:

'There's a common ingredient that you should look into... salicylic acid! It's a relative of aspirin and it's anti-inflammatory but it also has the ability to dissolve oil, so whether it's a blackhead or a sebaceous filament it'll dissolve the oil.'

Apart from skin care pearls of wisdom, we're also joined this week by Sarah Hanrahan; founder and moderator of  the 'I Come Undone' fashion and lifestyle blog.  Anna O'Rourke, one of our writers here at Her, also joins us to talk about our new on-site series 'Make A Fuss' which is championing women in business across Ireland. Go check it out... you'll learn HEAPS *backs away from the face wipes*.