The bump only I could see

In high school, I noticed something on my chin, right under my lower lip. Most days you could not see it. But if I rolled my lips inward, or pushed my tongue against the inside of my chin, a line of tiny whitehead-like bumps appeared. Put BB cream or foundation on top and they seemed to rise to the surface, at least to my eyes. Nobody else ever mentioned them. I noticed them every single time.

I used to look at close-up photos of actresses, skin smooth even at that distance, and wonder why mine would not go away.

What I tried for ten years

I assumed it was oil. Clogged pores dissolve in oil, so I cleansed with oil. I have been double cleansing with balms and cleansing oils for more than ten years, long before “double cleansing” was a phrase anyone used. I still do a deep cleanse twice a week: the balm melted in dry hands, rolled gently over dry skin, warm water to turn it milky, then a gel or foam to finish.

On top of that, once a week, an AHA/BHA product from the pharmacy. About once a month, a sebum-softening product left on before washing, then wiped away. Two or three times a month, a warm steam towel over my face for four or five minutes to open things up before cleansing.

In high school, the bumps and the breakouts I got around my period sent me to a dermatologist for extractions once a month.

None of it made the bumps go away. What cleansing does is keep the surface clean. It does not change what is already sitting inside the pore.

Why I stayed away from retinoids

I knew retinoids were the usual answer for this kind of texture. I avoided them anyway. They felt like too much work for my skin: too irritating to use every day, night only, and a strict sunscreen routine the next morning. Keeping track of which nights I had used them felt like a chore.

The sunscreen was the real problem. Nearly every sunscreen I tried made my eyes sting and water, badly enough that my head would ache for the rest of the day. So I disliked sunscreen, and because retinoids demand it, I skipped retinoids too.

What finally changed

What changed it was convenience. I started sleeping in K-SECRET’s SEOUL 1988 retinal eye patches and retinal pads, because they asked almost nothing of me. The patch goes under my eyes before bed and comes off in the morning. I toss and turn a lot, and it stays put. I tear one pad in half: one piece on my forehead, one under my chin.

They were the first retinal format I actually kept using. Disclosure: editor-affiliated brand.

After about two months, I could feel the bumps getting shallower. Not gone overnight. Shallower. That was the moment it clicked for me: this was the retinal doing its job, not the cleansing.

What I tell myself now

Cleansing still comes first for me. Skin that is not clean and settled will not do much with whatever you put on it. But cleansing was never going to smooth a texture that lives inside the pore.

If you want the science behind that difference, we explain it in What are closed comedones?. And if you want my exact oil cleansing method, it is in How to oil cleanse. The pad format I switched to has its own rules, and we lay them out in How to use toner pads.