Today’s topic comes from one of Siobhan’s viewers from the YouTube LetzMakeUp channel, that’s L-E-T-Z M-A-K-E U-P. And the question is what are those white hard bumps around the eye? They don’t act like pimples and they don’t respond to treatment like pimples. There’s a very good reason- they’re not pimples. They look like whiteheads but they’re not. First of all, they’re usually below the eyes, not next to the eyes or above it, it’s usually on the lower lid and they can be white or yellow, they can be round or oval and they can be flat topped or sort of dome shaped. They have a special name; they have nothing to do with acne, they’re called syringomas and syringomas are really enlargements of sweat ducts, having nothing to do with oil glands. Let me show you. This is our favorite diagram of the skin and this sweat gland is down here in the middle of the dermis, the middle layer of the skin and when it makes the sweat it has to get the sweat up to the surface of the skin. So it sends it up through this tube which is called a sweat duct and as it comes out of the dermis, the middle layer of the skin, it enters the epidermis, the upper layer of the skin. And when that duct, that tube, going through the epidermis becomes enlarged, it forms a syringoma. The enlargement of this part of the duct forms that white, hard, round bump. If you squeeze them, nothing comes out, if you put a pin in them, nothing comes out because they’re solid, they’re just enlargements of those tissues and cells that make the channel. How do you treat these? No creams or skincare products make any difference. If you come to a dermatologist’s office, each one individually has to be operated on, either electrically cauterized or cut out but there’s no cream that’s going to make a difference. So, if you have these little, white, round bumps of the lower lid and they bother you, see a dermatologist and he or she can help remove them but no cream is going to help take care of this one.
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