Aftercare

  • Days 1-10:

    • Wash your new scar FOUR times daily with an antibacterial/antimicrobial soap and/or hydrogen peroxide to prevent infection in the exposed areas. Hydrogen Peroxide also acts as a good irritant, due to its strength to damage healthy skin that attempts to heal the wound more quickly than you want it to.
    • For this, a simple Dial, Softsoap, or Lever 2000 should suffice. Since you are actually trying to form extra scar tissue, you don’t need to worry about overly mild soaps, such as with a piercing.
    • Do NOT scrub across the open skin. This will make for undesired, uneven scarring in the end.
    • Lather up the soap in clean hands and gently rub it into the cuts. Rinse with fresh water and repeat. Rinse once more and pat dry, gently, with a new, disposable, paper towel.
    • Do not wrap too tightly, as this may keep your cutting from keloiding upward as well. Leave this dressing on entirely until your next wash.

      It is important to keep the area moist by sealing it off from the air.

    • After a few days new tissue fibers should be sealing off the open skin, so infection may be less of a concern, but cleaning is still an important step for removing foreign, troublesome bacterium.
    • You may decide on applying an irritant to help your body build extra scar tissue. Toasted sesame oil has shown to be a terrific option as the crushed seeds will break up healing tissue and the oil will keep the area from drying out. Hydrogen Peroxide is also a good irritant to use, due to its strength to damage healthy skin that attempts to heal the wound more quickly than you want it to.
    • An alternative to this is Vaseline, or similar non-antibiotic substitute, mixed with a small amount of sugar, which will provide an effect comparable to the crushed seeds.
    • Rub your irritant in gently in the direction of the cutting lines, so as not to “blow out” the scar. Back and forth scrubbing with any product could potentially cause undesirable, “blown out” scarring in localized areas. For the most even scar distribution, scrubbing in any fashion during initial healing should be avoided.
    • Follow the irritant application with your cellophane dressing in the same fashion as mentioned above, being sure to seal the area airtight. Not allowing the area to dry will force your body to heal with new scar tissue, as it is unable to form new, healthy skin cells beneath an absent scab.
    • Do not wrap too tightly. It is important to leave room for scar tissue to rise.
    • Continue these steps until day 10 of your healing cycle.

      It is very possible you will develop an itching, aggravating heat rash below the cellophane, especially if you don’t remove it to wash twice a day. If this happens, I suggest applying a Zinc Oxide cream (used for diaper rash) twice daily to the affected areas. This will almost immediately begin to remedy the irritated tissue.
      Your body will eventually (around 3-6 weeks) generate enough scar tissue to completely cover any open wounds, and at this time you may decide to rub, scratch, smack, itch, etc. the design to build even more scar tissue without risk of blowing out lines, but it is important that if you do this, do it to ALL of it, or you will find yourself having more areas that raise more or less than others.

      In the end, the degree of keloiding you experience is largely dependant upon your genetics. The reality is that some people just scar more than others. As well, a cutting that is placed over many, or any, different moving muscle groups may scar more in certain areas as it is naturally irritated more from everyday action.