Dealing with a milia seed can be quite challenging. It’s a small white bump with a hard texture that most people sometimes confuse with a whitehead.
If you mistake a milia seed for a whitehead and try to squeeze it, you will risk getting irritations or scabbing instead.
Therefore, you won’t get acne scars as a result of that reckless pinching movement. To handle the skin problem with care, you will need to perform a particular extraction method.
In order to help you figure out a milia seed better, let’s read the information about its causes, how to treat it, and how to prevent it below!
What Are Milia Seeds?
Milia seeds are basically small white bumps that appear on your skin. Usually referred to as only milia, they can often be seen on the facial skin, particularly under the eye, forehead, and around the lips.
The bumpy white appearance can easily make people confuse a milia with a whitehead. However, unlike whiteheads, milia seeds don’t contain pus.
The seeds are cysts that contain keratin, making them more similar to nails and hairs. Milia is generally classified into primary and secondary types.
Primary milia appears and develops naturally due to the trapped keratin beneath the skin. Usually, this type is found in newborns and older adults.
Conversely, secondary milia develops because of the accumulation of dead skin cells that come from blisters and skin trauma.
What Causes Milia Seeds
From the two types of milia above, we can see how each of the formations came to be. The primary one usually appears naturally and, unfortunately, cannot be prevented.
However, the secondary milia type can appear due to the following factors:
- UV damage from long-term direct sun exposure.
- Skin blisters or injuries.
- The use of steroid cream in the long term.
- Skin resurfacing procedures to remove acne scars and rolling scars.
Read also: 8 Face Care Steps: A Guide to Achieving Flawless Skin
How to Remove Milia Seeds at Home
As mentioned earlier, you cannot just pop a milia seed because it forms under a thin layer of skin, which means there’s no opening to squeeze the inside.
Forcefully squeezing milia can result in infections, damage, and even permanent scarring. So, how can you safely remove it?
You can start a milia seed extraction with the help of over-the-counter products that promote dead cell skin exfoliation, like Differin, which is a product to treat acne.
Aside from differin, you can also use over-the-counter ointments that contain glycolic acid and salicylic acid.
Note that if you have a lot of milia, it’s better to get professional treatment. A trained dermatologist can help you solve the skin problem with a specific procedure.
Always prioritize facial hygiene by keeping your skin free from impurities and stray hairs to prevent milia from worsening. Experience our professional face hair removal service to maintain a flawlessly clean complexion. Contact our outlet today!
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Milia Seed Removal Procedures
In order to remove a milia seed safely, you can go to a beauty clinic and let a professional dermatologist treat you. Here are several procedure choices you should consider:
1. Deroofing
A manual milia seed extraction procedure is done by making a small opening on the surface of the skin with a lancet or a small surgical blade.
Afterward, the hard plug is gently pushed through the opening by the dermatologist’s gloved fingers or a comedone extractor.
2. Cryotherapy
Another way to remove milia seeds is by utilizing liquid nitrogen, which produces very cold temperatures. The cold liquid can immediately freeze off the skin, which then destroys the cyst.
3. Curettage
A surgical procedure to remove milia seeds uses electricity to scrape off the surface of the skin.
Curettage is commonly known as a therapy for skin cancer patients, but some clinics use it to treat severe cases of milia.
4. Laser Ablation/Resurfacing
This method uses small lasers to remove the milia through direct targeting. It works by removing the outer areas of the skin at a certain point in the body.
How to Prevent Milia Seeds
As you may have already known by now, the secondary type of milia is not something unavoidable. In other words, you can prevent the formation of the milia in the first place by:
- Avoiding direct sun exposure.
- Exfoliating routinely between two or three times a week.
- Cleansing your face and your body to prevent clogged pores.
- Avoiding thick creams or oil-based skincare products.
- Apply light sunscreen that doesn’t clog your pores.
So, have you learned a thing or two about a milia seed? It’s definitely different from whiteheads, which in turn require you to perform different procedures.
A milia seed removal is not something that you can do recklessly, as it may result in further skin problems.
If you have stubborn milia, you can try to ask for professional advice from skin therapists instead of treating it at home.
After getting the issue out of the way, you should continue taking better care of your face by undergoing a professional laser hair removal treatment.
At Clean & Tidy, we offer professional SHR treatment for beauty seekers who want to achieve optimal beauty goals through lessened body hair.
Get long-lasting results with repeated sessions. You can even enjoy your smooth, hair-free skin for a whole year.
If you want to try our service, you can contact us and book an appointment at Clean & Tidy Bugis or Jurong right away.
Read also: Depilatory Creams: Know the Side Effects and How to Use Them
