I have three prominent scars on my face. One is from a dogbite when I was a toddler, and was surgically altered in 2004 and is a bit better now. The other two were from an incident in 2005. I’m getting married in May and I want to look good in my wedding photos. The lip scar from the dogbite I’m not too worried about, as it’s easy to hide with makeup. the one on my chin is easy to ignore. The one between my lower lip and my chin, however, sticks up quite a bit and actually casts a shadow. The scar itself isn’t discolored–it isn’t red or anything–but the bump it causes is quite noticeable in certain lighting conditions. I will try to minimize those conditions in my wedding photos, of course, but in the meantime, is there anything I can do, short of surgery, to minimize the scar?
I have heard of petrolium jelly, vitamin E, neosporin, Mederma, etc… but I’ve also heard that they all work just because you’re rubbing the scar. If I get into a habit of rubbing my scar when I’m not doing anything better, will that help my scar go down? Will anything help my scar go down? Again, it’s a bump and I’m hoping to make the bump go away…
P.S. Not interested at all in hearing how much character facial scars give, or how beautiful they are, or how I should learn to love my scar, etc. Sorry, heard it all my life since I was 2 years old. I’ve done as much of that as possible, now I would like to actually affect as much physical change as possible.
I can’t comment on the physical aspect, but it’s almost trivial to remove something like a simple scar from a digital photograph after the picture is taken. So while your scar may be visible it doesn’t have to be in your wedding photographs.
First thing I thought of was Bio Oil but that might be better for redness. The website lists all the ingredients, which may be familiar to you already. http://www.bio-oil-direct.co.uk/
I have scars around my lips and chin from an accident when I was very small, one them look a little bit like the groove that runs between lips and nose so causes a little shadow(it has gone discoloured with sunlight I think and my co-worker recently mistook it for a bit of chocolate. How embarrassing…for her!!). I tend to disguise with make up, specifically Touche Eclat. There may be a way of learning how to counter shadows but might need expert make up advice. As you say you cover one scar with make up you may well have already tried it.
Speculating wildly…my brother once had a wart on his forehead and instead of getting it frozen off like you would think, he got this cream from the doctor and he had to apply the cream and then sort ‘file down’ the wart with what seemed to be a nail file. I guess it depends what the scar tissue is made up of now. Could your GP advise you?
ETA: John H’s idea is much better. Filing down facial tissue or anything else could be risky.
I’m well aware of that as I’ve actually won awards for photo retouching (seriously–two of them in an international competition) but I wouldn’t do that any more than I’d touch up the photo to make myself thinner or taller or anything else. I’d feel like a fraud and be ashamed to even display them if I did that. After all, everyone who knows me knows I have these scars.
Because one represents how I really look and the other doesn’t? That’s like saying what’s the difference between losing weight or just editing yourself to look thinner in the photo. Seems to me if you take that stance, you could just cut and paste Angelina Jolie’s face over your own and say “well, I could have plastic surgery to look like that, but it’s easier just to do this” and it would be just fine and dandy.
For me, I’d really rather not have the scar–on a photo or on my face. I hate it and think it’s very ugly. It’s disfiguring. If I could afford to have it surgically altered, I would. Someday, I will be able to afford to, but that is not going to happen before my wedding, and I’d really rather have it gone by then, since those photos will mean a lot to me.
I’m confused as to why people seem to have this bizarre attitude rather than just answering my question. I’m not asking anybody to tell me why I shouldn’t fix my scar. If you don’t have any actual advice for helping with the scar, then why are you even responding?
Take it easy. I think John H was just responding to your remark in the OP that you wanted to look good in the wedding photos, and thought that retouching the photos themselves would be the simplest solution.
You were the one who brought up your objections to photo retouching on principle, and I think it was natural that Chronos responded to your statements.
However, your clarification of the OP and re-focus on the topic of the physical removing/lessening of scars have been duly noted and shall be deferred to.
Would dermabrasion be something doable within your budget in the near future? It seems to be less of a big deal than full-on cosmetic surgery.
Should have no trouble adjusting the lighting so that there’s no shadow.
Other than that I’m going to have to vote with digital retouching. Actually altering body tissues can easily go way wrong and leave you worse off than you started. Best left to professionals as your first scar was.
But since you’re saying you “have until May”, I think this sounds like a good idea, at least to buy time. Would you still feel like a fraud if you edited the scar out of the photo in may, but the actual scar didn’t go away until a while later?
Just a thought, just in case, I’ve no clue how long actual scar removal would take.
Yes, I would still feel like a fraud editing out the scar even if it goes away later. That would be like editing myself thin in my wedding pictures because I plan to diet in a few years.
And you can “vote” for digitally retouching the scar away until your pencil breaks; it isn’t going to change the fact that I’m not going to do it. Neither my face nor my wedding photos are run as an internet democracy.
And no, I’m a student right now living off of student loans and credit cards, and I’m a single mom. My fiancé is also a student. None of us have jobs, so spending even a couple hundred bucks on having a scar removed is not something likely to happen between now and May.
Khadaji: when you say you’ve had good luck in the past, can you elaborate?
I did some looking around on the Web and it seems that most of the scar treatment read like snake oil. The various creams seem to “work” by softening the scar and the rubbing squishes it down. No idea how they would work on an older scar.
I would consult a dermatologist for what might work best in the time you have. Maybe go with the photo retouch for now and see what you can do in the future.
I have a scar I too would like to minimize without surgery, so I’m interested in the answers. Mine is actually not raised, but indented (from a large absess removed, I’ll spare people the details and amazing amount of pain I&D procedures are). Anyway, I see pads in the CVS that you can buy, but haven’t explored them yet. I guess if you have 8 months, a month or two of trial and error may not be too expensive.
(BTW, you catch more flies with honey, and all that…It’s not unfair of people to suggest that if altering the lights or makeup to get scars to appear minimal is than digital alteration isn’t exactly immoral. Peace and congrats.)
I used to use a cream called Scar Zone or something like that, I don’t remember what was in it, but it contained vitamin E. Basically you just rub that on the scar two or three times a day for a good 10 minutes each time. It didn’t work wonders, but it did noticeably reduce my scar (I have a big scar on my right shoulder from open bancourt surgery cause I’ve dislocated the bastard about 10 times. The scar is still there, but it doesn’t protrude nearly as much as it used to)
I agree on the snake oil theory. A dermatologist/plastic surgeon once told me that any impact the over-the-counter scar removers would have would be to either bleach out the redness or to act as a simple lubricant for the skin, thereby improving the appearance and elasticity. I was also surprised at how inexpensive the surgery turned out to be. In fact, I would have spent almost as much on a couple of the fake over the counter treatments I had been considering-- including one of those microderm abrasion home kits.
If it were that easy to make a scar disappear, there would be a whole host of FDA approved, well-tested products available for a wide variety of scar tissues.
My advice— at least check with a dermatologist to get an idea of how much $$ you are talking about. It might turn out to be less than you think.
What about a teaching hospital? It’s a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, there would be a hospital that could do some description of procedure without the massive cost if you were a (ugh hate this term coming up) ‘case study’ (ewww got it over with).
I had a scar on my face from a motorcycle accident. My brother had one on his from a car accident. Neither scar was severe, but you certainly could see it.
I used Vitamin E oil religiously morning and evening for several months and the scar has faded. I can feel it if I try, but others have told me it can’t be seen nor felt.
I cannot see my brother’s scar at all, but I have never tried to feel it.
I don’t recall exactly how long this process took though, because it was 20 years ago.
I will say it is cheap enough, and AFAIK it won’t hurt you, that you should try it.
Actually, there are some commercial scar faders that my doc has recommended. (I have several nasty scars on my stomach) They contain mostly Vitamin E, but other stuff too. I don’t recall the name, but do recall that I found them easily in the pharmacy simply by asking the pharmacist. I have not used them, because I have my doubts that they will work on scars as bad as those on my stomach, but maybe I’ll give it a shot. (On edit I think Scar Zone was one of them. I have not tried it though.)
(After review: A quick google says that there is no clinical evidence that Vitamin E works. So take my anecdote with a grain of salt. It seemed to work for me though.)
When I was in Physical Therapy for some repair work to a large injury on my wrist, the PT said to massage it as often as I could to keep the scar from growing. She did tell me to use some sort of lotion, because irritating the skin doesn’t help anything.
She did sort of imply that it only works while the scar tissue is still forming, though, so I don’t know if that helps. I can’t think that massaging lotion (or vitamin E, or whatever) into a patch of skin would hurt anything, though.
