How To Prevent Acne Scar or Make It Heal Faster?

Preventing yourself from picking or squeezing your pimples is the best method to prevent scarring. Another method is to treat acne lesions early in order to prevent acne scars from developing. That's why it is alway said that prevention is better than treatment in tackling acne problems.

Acne lesions normally take weeks or months to heal and can still leave red or brown markings even with no picking or squeezing of the acne. This is especially common for people with skin that is genetically prone to scarring or hyperpigmentation. Fairer skin acne sufferers often have red marks that stay on their skin for months. These marks may remain red or turn to brown while darker skin patients experience increased pigmentation when the acne finally clears.

The red and brown marks left from acne lesions will eventually goes away as these discolorations are not true scars; with no depressed pits or different skin textures. However, it may take months for the marks to fade . Therefore, many acne sufferers use fading cream to lighten it.

While creams are used to lighten the skin, laser can be used to reduce the redness. Most lightening creams contain hydroquinone as its active ingredient used to lighten the markings. Some products combine hydroquinones with glycolic acid, tretinoin, sunscreens, moisturizers and antioxidant. The difference between over the counter and prescription medications is that the over the counter formulations can contain up to 2% of hydroquinone while the prescription type can go up to 4% only.This is important as to minimize the effect of over-bleaching the skin colourations.

You should use the product on the whole acne prone area instead of just the spot itself as this will create a patch of lighter skin around the spot.

Hydroquinone normally doesn't cause any side effects in comparison to the accompanied ingredients that are used to increase the absorption of hydroquinone such as glycolic acid and retinoids. These two ingredients can be irritating to the skin. A skin reaction known as exogenous ochronosis in which dark brown or black spots that can occur in the skin after treated with hydroquinones inlarge doses or for extended periods is very common in African Americans.