How To Get Rid Of a Pimple Fast

Woke up with a full-blown blemish? Crush an aspirin, mix it with a few drops of water, soak the tip of a cotton swab in it, and hold the swab against the zit for about 15 seconds. It won’t make the pimple disappear, but it can reduce redness.

Look in your cupboard: If you have lemon juice, instant oatmeal, honey, and an egg, you can make a paste out of a teaspoon of each and some of the egg white. Wash your face, smear the paste on the pimple, leave it on for 20 minutes, and rinse with warm water. This should further reduce the redness.

Now that you’ve stopped the pimple in its tracks, it’s time to blast it off the face of … your face. Pick up some manuka honey at a health-food store, smear it on a bandage, and stick it on your pimple before bed. The zit will be far less noticeable by morning.

If you can’t track down manuka honey, take some toothpaste—the paste kind, not the gel kind—and dab a pea-size amount on your pimple. When you wake up, the zit should be a shriveled shell of its former self. Take care not to spread it on the skin surrounding the pimple, or that will dry out, too.

If a gi-normous zit is threatening to ruin a big day and no home remedies have helped, visit a dermatologist, who can make it disappear—sometimes within hours—with a single injection of cortisone.