Using a sauna or steam room is an excellent way to remove all kinds of impurities from your body. It opens up pores and relaxes organs. This, in turn, allows your body to flush out all kinds of things like toxins, debris, pollution, and stress from deep under the skin.
The heat and moisture of a sauna or steam room encourage blackheads to rise to the surface of the skin. But to remove it, you need to cleanse your skin after the session. Post-cleanup, you need to apply toner or face serum to prevent more blackheads from forming.
In the rest of the article, we are going to look at the effects of saunas and steam rooms on your skin. And we will show you how to remove blackheads during sauna sessions.
Table of Contents
Effects of Sauna & Steam Rooms on Skin
Unfortunately, many people fail to pay attention to the fact that their skin is the most important organ of the entire body. It’s what protects your bones, inner organs, and other delicate systems. Your skin is the first to sustain damage from things like weather, pollution, bumps, bruises, cuts, and dirt.
Failure to care for your skin overall, not just what’s on your face, is essential to keeping yourself healthy and young looking. Going into a sauna or steam room on occasion can provide a noticeable positive improvement in skin’s appearance, texture, and tone.
Doctor Recommended
Saunas and steam rooms come highly recommended by dermatologists, estheticians, and other skincare specialists. The humidity keeps skin hydrated while the heat opens up pores. Through these, all kinds of impurities escape and this includes anything contained in blemishes; such as is the case with blackheads.
Additionally, blood circulation improves, which means your skin cells retain nutrients while creating healthy cell turnover. Both are essential to anti-aging pursuits as well as keeping skin free of blemishes like blackheads.
However, those with severe cases of acne along with people suffering from rosacea or psoriasis should be careful of getting into a sauna or steam room. The heat produced can make these problems worse, so consult with your skincare health pro before attempting to rid blackheads this way.
How to Remove Blackheads During Sauna?
If you know your skin is safe inside a sauna or steam room, follow these five simple steps below to get rid of blackheads.
1. Clean Yourself Thoroughly
Before getting into a sauna, you should take a shower with plenty of soap and rinse well with warm (not hot) water. Doing so will remove any particles, dirt, debris, and residue. You don’t necessarily have to wash your hair just yet, although you can if you wish.
If you don’t wash off prior to getting in a humid environment like this, your skin will just absorb what’s sitting on it. The idea is detoxification, you don’t want to contribute more blackheads.
2. Get into the Sauna Immediately
As soon as you’ve finished cleaning yourself thoroughly, quickly pat yourself dry with a towel and get into the sauna. You don’t want to take any chances of allowing dust or additional debris to attach to your skin. When you’re moist after a shower, you’re a magnet for these things.
In terms of toweling off, do not rub the fabric of the towel onto your skin. Dab and pat only! This is because the fibers can get into your pores and thus cause greater issues with blackheads and blemishes.
3. Stay Until You Can’t Stand It
Everyone will have varying tolerance levels for staying in a sauna. So, don’t force yourself to stay in longer than you can handle. For some people. this will be 20 minutes while others will find an hour to be comfortable. Going longer than you can tolerate can cause vertigo, dizziness, and/or heatstroke.
4. Get Back into the Shower
Once finished with the sauna, get back into the shower to rinse off with warm water. You can choose to wash your hair at this point if you want. Right before you get out, run through a dose of cold water. This will force your pores to close, which results in your skin squeezing out the blackheads.
Leaving your pores open after a sauna will not help remove blackheads and definitely has the potential to exacerbate them. Turn off the water and, with a body brush (and facial brush), scrub every nook, cranny, and surface of your skin. Turn the water back on and rinse well with warm water and then again with cold water.
5. Skin Treatments & Moisturizers
Always finish this regimen with things like astringent, toner, essences, ampoules, serums, and other treatments appropriate for your skin. Using products specific to blackheads will help ensure they won’t come back.
Of course, never forget to moisturize. Even the oiliest, acne-prone skin must hydrate or all your blackhead removal efforts will be for naught.
FAQs
Does Sweating Remove Blackheads?
Sweating in and of itself doesn’t remove blackheads. When in a situation of a steam room or sauna, it merely encourages the blackheads to come out. But, if you sweat while exercising without cleaning your skin afterward, it can cause blackhead outbreaks.
Do Saunas Clog Pores?
Saunas can clog pores if you’re not careful. This is why it’s crucial to at least rinse yourself off before and after the sauna to ensure you don’t end up with additional skin problems.
Do Saunas Clear Skin?
If you want clear skin via a sauna, you have to take the necessary precautions. Saunas alone do not clear skin, you have to prepare before going in and be diligent in taking care of your skin after a session.
Conclusion
Using a sauna or steam room to help remove blackheads is an ideal thing to do. But, you have to ensure you shower yourself off before going in followed by taking care of your skin once you exit the humid environment. Otherwise, you’ll just exacerbate the blackheads.
Regardless, when you do it right, it works wonders and your skin will love you for it. The pores will be clear, your skin will feel refreshed and you’ll maintain a youthful glow.
(Featured image by SHVETS production from Pexels)
