8 of My Favorite Spot Treatment Products
Pimples and surprise breakouts are never fun. The best thing we can do to ensure new breakouts go away quickly is spot-treat them with a breakout-clearing treatment product and/or mask instead of trying to pick at or pop them. Below I list 8 products I think are great options for spot-treating pimples. These spot treatments are best applied after cleansing and toner in your AM or PM skincare routine.
scrub me secret: if you’re experiencing new breakouts, keep your skincare routine gentle and minimal using only a gentle cleanser, calming or hydrating toner, spot treatment, and moisturizer or face oil for 7 days. This should help reset your skin’s barrier, reduce inflammation, and clear breakouts.
Kinship Pimple Potion
I really love the ingredient blend in this product! This spot treatment potion uses 2% salicylic acid to clear oils and debris plus retinal (a retinol derivative) that both makes pimples/cystic acne smaller in size as well as fades any unwanted pigment.
I would recommend this spot treatment for normal/oily/congested skin types experiencing whitehead breakouts, cystic breakouts, and/or small pimples.
PCA Acne Cream
This is a benzoyl peroxide spot treatment that I often use during facials as well as on myself. Benzoyl peroxide travels into the pimple and creates oxygen inside, killing bacteria. This product contains 5% benzoyl peroxide which is quite strong and effective.
This spot treatment is best for those experiencing stubborn pimples and/or whiteheads. You can use this spot treatment daily until the breakout starts to feel dry or fades away.
Indie Lee Banish Stick
A great spot treatment for treating pimples on the go! The packaging of this spot treatment makes it perfect for tossing in your purse, pocket, or travel bag. It’s easy to apply and super sanitary. This banish stick treats pimples and areas with blackheads using plant-derived salicylic acid and various flower and root extracts.
This product is great for oily, congested, or breakout prone skin types to have in their travel bag and/or cosmetics bag.
Ology Essentials CBD Masque
I like this CBD clay mask as a spot treatment for big pimples and deep/inflamed breakouts. Soothing yet detoxifying bentonite clay and french green clay draw impurities from the breakout and CBD isolate targets and reduces inflammation. I personally find this to be very effective for my sensitive skin.
This mask is great to use for spot treating larger pimples, little red pimples, and larger cystic acne.
scrub me secret: Masks are a great option because you can use them to spot treat pimples as well as use them for your full face. You can even mask anywhere you want on your body. I usually suggest masking your full face once a week or once every 10 days. You can use a mask as a spot treatment daily.
Josh Rosebrook Cacao Antioxidant Mask
This product is a little bit of an out-of-the-box pick for a pimple spot treatment, but stick with me! This mask produces a ton of healing circulation and nutrient delivery to the skin. That means when you spot treat a breakout with this mask it can increase oxygen flow, which kills bacteria and promotes healing of the skin. It can be a great option for you if traditional spot treatments haven’t worked well, if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have breakouts that are slow to heal.
I like spot-treating small clusters of pimples, blemishes that have popped but need to heal, and inflamed whiteheads.
Skin Nutritious Colloidal Oatmeal Mask
This mask is just straight-up colloidal oats. That means its main job is to reduce redness and inflammation. I really like colloidal oats for spot-treating large, painful feeling, and/or red breakouts. While these oats don’t kill bacteria or minimize oils they are super helpful for making the breakout less visible.
I like to use colloidal oats to spot-treat a large, painful, or red breakout(s) and keep it on as an overnight treatment. In the morning the breakout is less visible and I can then treat it with a bacteria-killing spot treatment to get it to fully go away.
scrub me secret: My skin is really reactive and gets visibly red very easily. When my skin is broken out from a reaction to a product, environmental allergy, or hormonal fluctuation a lot of inflammation comes along with my pimples. My skin responds really well to soothing and anti-inflammatory masks like the colloidal oat mask or blue magic mask.
Sonya Dakar Blue Magic
A spot treatment for red, textured, and irritated skin. This mask soothes, balances, and resets the skin’s barrier; helping it to become smoother and less red. This mask contains ingredients that really work! Like oil derived from soothing chamomile, Centella Asiatica, healing butterfly pea tea, and hydrating hyaluronic acid.
This mask is a great spot treatment for areas that have become textured or broken out from over-exfoliating, over-cleansing, or sensitized from a different skincare product.
Solawave Bye-Acne
If you know me you know I love LED therapy for treating the skin. This pimple and acne-fighting spot treatment product uses both bacteria-killing blue LED and anti-inflammatory/rejuvenating red LED to treat pimples and cystic acne.
Use this device on a clean face, hold it over your pimple or cystic breakout for 3 minutes. If you’re treating multiple breakouts you’ll need to treat each area for 3 min each.