Acne scars are absolutely not an easy thing to get rid of. Once you get rid of your acne (and this how I treated mine), you have already achieved the biggest and the most important part of the process. However, your happiness is never complete before you fade all those hideous dark spots and red marks, distorting your beauty and preventing you from having that flawless skin you want.
I admit that the process of fading the scars can be trickier than getting rid of acne itself. However, if you look on the bright side, the kind of scars that I'm talking about here ( hyperpigmentation and dark spots) is the easiest kind of scars to treat compared to other major scarring types which I've fortunately never had, such as those deep "pit" in the skin..etc.
Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation is the "scientific" word for this condition I'm dealing with. It's just the skin producing an excess of melanin on some patches of the skin resulting in that dark color.
Why it's not impossible to get rid of those?
It's simple. Hyperpigmentation will eventually fade, sooner or later. In fact, it is just a discolored layer of the skin and that will eventually shed, revealing the less pigmented, healthy skin. Of course this depends on the severity of the scars. In some cases it might takes as little as a few weeks for a acne mark to fade, but unfortunately, for most people, it takes way longer than that. If you're among this latter kind of people, and if you don't treat your scars as soon as possible, they can stay there for years, and if they're "bad" enough, they may never go away!
Well, enough talking now, I was just trying to make things clear so that you can understand your condition better. Now let's get practical.
Provided you have a mild/moderate post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (or acne marks or whatever you like to call them), and not a very severe scarring type other than this, these methods might help you enormously:
1- The natural way: there are many good remedies out there. Lemon juice, baking soda, olive oil (yes olive oil and I shall post something about that). Well, I'm not sure these will work for everyone. From my experience, I can say that lemon juice works fine because it's a mild, natural skin bleach. With regular use it will lighten the skin and fade the dark spots. I have already posted an article about natural skin lighteners here.
2- Hydroquinone/Differin combination: Hydroquinone being a controversial yet a proven skin bleach, and differin being somewhat an exfoliant, this combination works greatly but of course it will take at least a couple of months to completely fade the scars. I'm onto it, and I can see it working. I have also posted a whole separate article about that here.
3-Exfoliation: I know I mention this all the time but it's totally worth it. Getting rid of the top skin layer is certainly a great way to speed up the fading of the dark spots and acne marks.
4-Chemical peels and laser treatment: If all of this fail, you can go to your doctor and he will maybe recommend these "extreme" treatments, depending on your condition. Still, it's always better to keep this solution for the last moment. It's costly and somewhat risky.
I hope this helped. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned! :)
I admit that the process of fading the scars can be trickier than getting rid of acne itself. However, if you look on the bright side, the kind of scars that I'm talking about here ( hyperpigmentation and dark spots) is the easiest kind of scars to treat compared to other major scarring types which I've fortunately never had, such as those deep "pit" in the skin..etc.
Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation is the "scientific" word for this condition I'm dealing with. It's just the skin producing an excess of melanin on some patches of the skin resulting in that dark color.
Why it's not impossible to get rid of those?
It's simple. Hyperpigmentation will eventually fade, sooner or later. In fact, it is just a discolored layer of the skin and that will eventually shed, revealing the less pigmented, healthy skin. Of course this depends on the severity of the scars. In some cases it might takes as little as a few weeks for a acne mark to fade, but unfortunately, for most people, it takes way longer than that. If you're among this latter kind of people, and if you don't treat your scars as soon as possible, they can stay there for years, and if they're "bad" enough, they may never go away!
Well, enough talking now, I was just trying to make things clear so that you can understand your condition better. Now let's get practical.
Provided you have a mild/moderate post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (or acne marks or whatever you like to call them), and not a very severe scarring type other than this, these methods might help you enormously:
1- The natural way: there are many good remedies out there. Lemon juice, baking soda, olive oil (yes olive oil and I shall post something about that). Well, I'm not sure these will work for everyone. From my experience, I can say that lemon juice works fine because it's a mild, natural skin bleach. With regular use it will lighten the skin and fade the dark spots. I have already posted an article about natural skin lighteners here.
2- Hydroquinone/Differin combination: Hydroquinone being a controversial yet a proven skin bleach, and differin being somewhat an exfoliant, this combination works greatly but of course it will take at least a couple of months to completely fade the scars. I'm onto it, and I can see it working. I have also posted a whole separate article about that here.
3-Exfoliation: I know I mention this all the time but it's totally worth it. Getting rid of the top skin layer is certainly a great way to speed up the fading of the dark spots and acne marks.
4-Chemical peels and laser treatment: If all of this fail, you can go to your doctor and he will maybe recommend these "extreme" treatments, depending on your condition. Still, it's always better to keep this solution for the last moment. It's costly and somewhat risky.
I hope this helped. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned! :)