Overview

Your pores are key to developing and maintaining healthy skin. These small ducts excrete sebum oil, which helps keep your skin moisturized and healthy. They also enable sweating to cool your body when your internal body temperature rises. Sebum oil can sometimes get stuck in your pores and create blockages, or make it more difficult to sweat and excrete oil onto the skin. The best way to defend against this is to keep your skin healthy by using treatments to open your pore ducts.

Step 1

Apply a hot compress to your skin, using warm or hot water and a soft cloth. Keep this compress on your skin for at least five to 10 minutes to help open your pores. This is a temporary solution, since your pores will close back up as your skin cools, but it is useful when applying other treatments to your pores.

Step 2

Use an exfoliating scrub once or twice a week to work out the pores and help open them. The exfoliating scrub can also help get rid of dead skin cells and dried sebum oil that can cover or block your pores.

Step 3

Use salicylic acid to clean deep into your pores. Sebum oil can create full or partial blockages deep in the pore that can't be reached from the surface. The salicylic can reach deep into your pores and break down the salicylic acid in them, opening up your pores from deep within. Salicylic acid is also an effective treatment for blackheads.