If you delight in watching gooey zits pop and in seeing their nasty insides shoot across the room, take comfort in knowing that you are in the company of millions. And the Internet is totally supportive of your habit, too, providing popping videos in spades. At the forefront of the most gruesome ones is Dr. Sandra Lee (also known as Dr. Pimple Popper), who posts intimate excavation videos of blackheads so big and cysts so goopy, they have to be seen to be believed. With more than 1.8 million extraction videos on YouTube, Dr. Lee’s clips are in fine company.
If you see a “freaking goldmine,” as one commenter posted, where others just see a lump-filled nose — or just can’t look away from never-ending streams of pus that drain from enlarged pores — then hold onto your tweezers, because we’ve assembled the ultimate pimple porn playlist.
Ahead, see the most watched extraction videos of all time, each more intense than the last. And hold onto your lunch, you’re in for a bumpy ride.
In this video showing a dilated pore of winer extraction (skin congestion that’s often years — and sometimes decades — in the making), Dr. Pimple Popper removes a black mass from the back of a patient’s shoulder that’s about the size of a bullet. Once the mass is removed, the affected area looks like the skin that surrounds a belly button and must be kept agape rather than stitched shut in order to heal properly. Basically, you’ve got to see it to believe it.
The third most popular extraction video doesn’t look like much at first — the patient brandishes a barely-noticeable blackhead that has taken residence on her lip. But then dermatologist Sandra Lee gets her hands on the area and things get real — fast. After an incision is made on the upper lip, the area is held open with tools, and given a little wiggle. Bam! Out pops a mass that Lee affectionately nicknames “a baby river rock.” Um, cute? Three stitches later, the patient is sent packing, a load lighter in the lip.
After watching back-to-back extraction videos, you’ll start to notice a little pattern (if not swear off creamy foods): Many of the clogged pores are located on parts of the body that are tough for the patients to see themselves, like the backside of the body or in crevices of the ears. Sure enough, this patient’s long-neglected blackhead is located on her shoulder blade and once Dr. Lee gets started, another cyst is discovered, taking up connecting space. You’ll have to watch for the all the gory details.
Is the couple that visits the dermatologist together the couple that stays together? In this video, Lee treats a woman who is accompanied by her husband for the appointment. The pair has been married for more than 50 years, but something tells us the partnership has never been tested like this before. When addressing sizeable blackheads on the patient's back, a dark brown goo is released, along with the the white muck that comprises the blackhead’s sack. After all is scraped out, the patient’s skin looks much smoother. Have you ever seen a better display of in sickness and in health?
If the first four videos were child's play to you, then try stomaching this bad boy, which uses a medical camera for extreme closeups. In this clip, Dr. Sandra Lee takes her pimple-popping skills to The Doctors studio and addresses a blackhead on the back of a patient’s ear. Thanks to the camera’s closeup, the goo-factor is gnarlier than ever.
A long-suffering patient with a blackhead on his back gets the Dr. Pimple Popper treatment — and the white goop that’s released as a result is pretty astounding. The patient gamely called the process, “a good way to lose weight,” but by our measure, it’s more like a good way to lose our lunch.
How do you find out that a blackhead has set up shop on the backside of your ear? If you’re this woman, it’s via a full-body scan, which detected the shark’s tooth-sized blockage seen in this clip. After cutting away at the back of the ear, Dr. Lee pulled a hardened, black mass from a pocket of skin. “You could smuggle diamonds in here,” the good doctor remarked about the accommodating space within skin. As if that weren't enough must-see TV, the derm goes on to dislodge a few additional blackheads from the patient’s complexion, too.
Some people consult a pricey plastic surgeon to re-shape their noses. But this man, who suffers from glandular rosacea (which causes thickening of the skin) experienced a similar effect by having oversized blackheads and whiteheads expunged from his nose. As Dr. Pimple Popper frees pore after pore of excess oil and skin cells (which comes out in gunky, long strings), the man’s nose smooths out and becomes slimmer.
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