Here’s why women have started rubbing garlic on their faces

The latest beauty hack to take the Internet by storm...

Garlic has played many roles over the centuries: food, aphrodisiac, currency, medicine, vampire repellent… And as of this week, garlic can add 2016’s latest beauty trend to its CV.

Last week beauty vlogger and Youtube personality, Farah Dhukai discovered that rubbing raw garlic on her face got rid of her spots instantly. Taking to Instagram to share her findings with her 500k followers, she uploaded a short video tutorial.

‘Garlic will flatten your pimple and get rid of it overnight, if not instantly’ she wrote on her Instagram page, before demonstrating with a ‘how-to’.

‘Take a clove of garlic and make some cuts in it to extract some garlic juice. Rub the garlic on any pimples that you may have. If you have a whitehead like me – it’ll be gone instantly and won’t come back. If you have a larger pimple beneath the surface, rub the garlic on it and leave it on overnight. You’ll wake up with it gone' she wrote.

Could this actually be an effective skin treatment?

This isn't the first time we've resorted to home-made remedies (face masks with yogurt, honey and apple cider vinegar and dabs of toothpaste before bed) in a desperate attempt to dry out our whiteheads – all to no avail.

Luckily for, well, pretty much everyone, this hack actually seems to work, with the news spreading across social media like wild fire.

Garlic is actually a great natural remedy due to its antibacterial properties. The strong-smelling bulb is known for being effective in tackling high blood pressure, cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and even the common cold. But it turns out that thanks to its Allicin content, garlic can also do wonders for clear skin, reducing the redness and swelling of pimples and preventing future outbreaks.

The garlic can be ingested or applied manually but seeing as optimum results require for the clove to be raw, we suggest the latter.

Watch Farah’s Instagram tutorial for more details and the next time you feel a whitehead brewing, skip your bathroom toiletries and head straight for your kitchen cupboard.