Pimple popping videos are the pickles of beauty — you either can't get enough of them or the thought alone is enough to make your stomach churn. Good news if you're in the former category: There are millions of #popaholics who believe there is nothing more satisfying than watching a lump filled with pus shoot across the room at Usain Bolt speed.
If you don't hide behind your hands every time a grotesque video finds its way onto your Facebook feed, then you're going to want to feast your eyes on the latest phenomenon of cyst-popping clips by UK cosmetic doctor Dr. Tijion Esho. Only this time, the fluid being extracted from under the skin isn't an infection or located on someone's back, cheek, scalp, shoulder, or neck — as is so often the case with zits — but rather the aftermath of lip filler gone wrong. Observe:
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The moment he punctures the bubble with a surgical needle, a translucent goo oozes from the woman's lip area — like squeezing out a clear gloss from a Juicy Tube. But the stuff inside the white lump here is not pus. "There is no infection here as there is no pus, inflammation or foreign body reaction," Dr. Esho explained in the caption. "This is a typical filler inclusion cyst caused by poor product placement."
Unfortunately, dermatologist Dr. Michelle Henry says injecting filler too superficially (i.e. too close to the surface) or in too high of quantities is surprisingly common. "Lips are a very popular area to treat, but they require significant expertise and an in-depth understanding of the unique properties of each type of dermal filler," she says. "Because of the volume of the product used, it remained a cohesive ball [on the lips] and did not blend into the tissue well."
"Product choice is also important," Dr. Henry says. "A soft filler, like [Juvederm] Volbella, is less likely to cause these kinds of complications."
But the above video from Dr. Esho is where it starts to look like an episode from Dr. Pimple Popper's YouTube channel: When you don't drain the lip filler cyst for too long (as was the case here), it calcifies and creates the milky color. Talk about an explosive finale.