The ability to resist popping a pimple is a form of self-control few possess. Getting rid of zits is more than just an urge to rid our faces of blemishes; it’s part of our DNA. Still, for as long as man’s been popping pimples, dermatologists have been warning against it. But if you truly can’t help popping pimples, like so many of us, Dr. Mehmet Oz offers directions on the proper way to do so to avoid infection and scarring.

With the help of a seriously gross and way too realistic jumbo-sized zit, Dr. Oz finally revealed on The Oprah Winfrey Show the healthy way to get rid of acne. The trick is piercing the blemish rather than squeezing it. “Never squeeze a pimple, because when you squeeze a pimple, you macerate it,” Dr. Oz explains, referring to the process of the breaking down of skin caused by prolonged exposure to moisture.

Instead, Dr. Oz recommends that you pierce the pimple parallel to the skin with a sterilized needle and then rip the skin upward. This will cause no pain, since you are piercing the already dead skin. “If you’re going deeper than this, it’s going to be uncomfortable, so only hit the white part of the pimple,” Oz says. This is also not going to cause any further damage to the healthy skin surrounding the blemish.

Although many associate pimples as being the product of poor hygiene, they are actually quite unrelated to an individual’s grooming patterns. Instead, they are the product of overactive sebaceous glands at the base of the hair follicles. When dead skin cells are left behind and get stuck together in the sebum, the pore gets blocked and a pimple forms.