Pimple Inside Your Nose? Here’s What to Do

By Alice Ruby On Sep 27, 2021

I thought acne was something that I’d outgrow, like knowing all the lyrics to Evanescence’s first album or a tendency to succumb to ennui. But many years later, all of those things are still here—and it turns out at least one of them can be explained. You can get acne at pretty much any age, and acne is the most common skin condition in America. This is all to say, I’ve had enough experience with breakouts that I know what to do when a pimple pops up (yay?), but there’s one kind of pimple that still baffles me—the pimple that appears inside the nose. So I asked dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, to share her knowledge about why these inner-nose pimples happen, and how to get rid of them.

A pimple inside your nose can be similar to face and body breakouts, Dr. Gohara says. Face and body breakouts can occur due to a variety of factors, including, hormones, stress, and not washing your face before you go to bed. The acne that can show up inside your nose is more likely to be a pustule or cyst than a whitehead or blackhead. (Here’s a refresher on the different types of acne.) If this is the case, then Dr. Gohara says it can be treated with typical acne remedies like salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide wipes and cleansers.

“More nerve endings and more sensitive skin,” are two reasons why you may find those inner-nose pimples so much more painful than pimples on, say, your butt, explain s Dr. Gohara. But, often bumps inside your nose can be caused by infection, she says, which makes the area more tender as well.

Yep, a painful bump inside your nose could also be from a bacterial infection, like a staph infection, Dr. Gohara says. “If it’s an infection, it often comes from your nails—from

nose picking,” she says. “So wash your hands.” And since bacterial infections inside the nose can be commonly mistaken for a run-of-the-mill pimple, she also recommends seeing your dermatologist to rule infection out.

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