Uh oh. You’ve got an important event or date coming up, and now you’ve developed an unseemly pimple. Popping it could make it worse but you know you don’t want to leave it alone either. What options do you have? You can try to wash it away with cleansers and face washes, but those are typically longer-term solutions, not overnight silver bullets.
One option that’s been around, if not widely available, is pimple patches, also known as zit stickers. Now, men looking for a fast overnight fix for poorly timed zits have a new option: the Overnight Pimple Stickers from Disco. These zit stickers were formulated specifically for the pH balance of men’s skin, and these stickers were officially released on April 12, 2022.
We’re big fans of Disco Skincare for Men, and the brand sent SPY a sample of its newest product for testing. Knowing guys everywhere of all ages deal with pimples, including myself and the other guys at SPY, I wanted to test this sticker out to see if it lives up to its promise of minimizing visible pimples. I had a good experience with the product, and you can see my full Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers review below, plus some before and after photos, to see just how well this product works.
Pros:
- High-quality pimple patch that wears comfortably and doesn’t lose its stick
- Acne-fighting ingredients that let you save face
- Convenient to travel with / low space footprint
- Subscription available with a 20% discount
- One of the first zit stickers made for men
Cons:
- Not a substitute for a regular grooming routine
- Somewhat pricey on a per sticker basis ($2.00 per sticker)
- Works well but isn’t a magical silver bullet
- Zip bag doesn’t appear recyclable
Disco Overnight Pimple Sticker: At a Glance
- Number of patches: Nine pimple stickers
- Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic Acid, Salicylic Acid, Willow Bark Extract, Eucalyptus
- Price: $18.00 per pack
- Release date: April 12, 2022
- Subscription?: Yes, with a 20% discount
Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers: Packaging
The exterior packaging is a zip bag with a modern and simple design as well as extremely clear instructions and ingredients. Inside the zip bag, you’ll find a square plastic container slightly bigger than the bottom of a soda can. Overall, it’s got a pretty small footprint and if you ditch the bag, you can travel with these pimple patches anywhere. One down note: The zip bag doesn’t appear to be recyclable. I wouldn’t expect the pimple stickers themselves to be recyclable or biodegradable, but it’d be nice if the bag was.
Ingredients, Formula and Sticker Design
The sticker itself is pretty neat. It features exfoliating and hydrating ingredients, such as salicylic acid, glycerin and hyaluronic acid, to break down the pimple and moisturize irritated skin. But the Disco Overnight Pimple Sticker’s coolest feature is the dissolving microneedles, which you can actually see and touch with your fingers. These microneedles help those desirable active ingredients penetrate the skin, and they dissolve as the sticker goes to work.
Eucalyptus, a signature fragrance for Disco, also makes an appearance as does willow bark extract for its astringent, anti-inflammatory, skin-rejuvenating and skin-soothing properties.
Application and Experience: Before & After
If the product works, everything else is window dressing. Let me walk you through my experience and what I learned.
As one should do any time using a new product, I was sure to follow the instructions, which were pretty basic and self-explanatory. First, I washed my face and patted dry before peeling the sticker out of the plastic film, being careful not to touch the center of the patch as directed. I pressed it to my whitehead on my upper left cheekbone for about 10 seconds until I was sure it was stuck. It was nighttime, so I left it on overnight as advised and took it off about 10 hours later in the late morning.
Now, here’s what I found:
The Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers worked for me: After an overnight application, I thought my whitehead looked visibly smaller and less red, notable for me because I’ve had this thing chilling for about a week. Though my blemish wasn’t completely gone, the skin around it looked and felt better in every way. I honestly expected the Disco Overnight Pimple Sticker to do less than it did, even if it didn’t perform a magic zit-disappearing act for my face. My skin and pimple only continued to improve in the hours after removal too. Plus, the sticker had the added benefit of stopping me from touching the pimple, which only irritates it and makes it worse. Based on this test and the improved appearance, I’m confident one more treatment would’ve gotten rid of the pimple entirely.
The packaging was kind of tricky: Though the plastic box inside the plastic zip bag had a side marked “open,” it still wasn’t clear which side of the pimple sticker was the topside and which was the bottom side to be applied. When the directions tell you not to touch the center of the sticker, that piece of info is pretty important. Thankfully, you can gently graze the stickers with your fingers to feel the microneedles without destroying them.
The sticker blended into my skin surprisingly well: I have a light tan complexion that only gets darker with more spring and summer sunlight, so I kind of expected the sticker to be more obvious. It didn’t exactly camouflage and I wouldn’t call it invisible, but it didn’t stand out much more than my glasses or beard. That might not be the case for those with darker skin tones, but the pimple sticker is somewhat transparent and might blend a little better than other patches.
The sticker is non-irritating and comfortable: It’s hard to overstate how much I forgot the Disco Overnight Pimple Sticker was on my face. That might be different for someone wearing it in a different place, but It didn’t disturb my sleep and I didn’t take it off first thing in the morning because I barely noticed it.
The sticker doesn’t lose its stick: Once I pressed the pimple sticker on, it stayed securely until I mechanically peeled it off the following morning. Though that’s to be expected, it’s still good to exceed the basic expectations.
Our Verdict: A Great New Tool for Fighting Acne
Pimple patches are designed to do one thing: minimize pimples fast with sustained targeted contact with anti-acne ingredients. Do Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers do that? I say yes. Like the best men’s skincare products, this product actually works.
Should You Buy Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers?
Yes, with a couple of small caveats. Based on my experience, the Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers can be a great option to treat the occasional inflamed blemish and whitehead. But given their limited everyday grooming utility, they’re not an absolute necessity for your grooming routine. To be fair, that’s not a knock on the Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers so much as it is a critique of pimple patches in general. A proper routine that considers your blemishes and breakouts would serve you better in the long term for sure. (If you like acne face masks, Disco has one of our favorites.)
But if you only deal with the occasional visible breakout or know your face constantly has to be on its A-game, then the Disco Overnight Pimple Stickers can be a savvy item to add to your grooming arsenal. They absolutely work to minimize noticeable blemishes and could be the clutch product that saves your day.
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