Specially made make-up can help you hide scars and marks and help you feel more confident

Our friend, Denice, shares what she knows about specialist make-up that can hide scars and marks. Denice would like to remind you that she’s not a health care professional, and you should talk to your doctor or nurse before taking any medical action.

We’re talking about scars here, healed scars, not wounds. By taking care of wounds in the first place you can decrease the severity of scaring.

Special make-up for scars – not just for girls!

This works best on ‘flat’ scarring – but it definitely draws attention away from raised, red scarring, so in my opinion it’s worth using. I did some research about this myself before I talked to my GP about it. I found that there appears to be two main organisations who work in this area:

• Changing Faces (see their skin camouflage page)
• The British Association for Skin Camouflage (BASC)

Both seem to be based in either Dermatology or Maxiliofacial Dept of hospitals and both ask for a GP referral (although I think BASC may also do private consults).

The consultant I saw was really nice and helpful and also very professional in her approach – she never asked anything about how the scarring happened – although it is fairly obvious. She first worked with trying to get colours of cream which matched my skin best. This actually took much longer than usual – we found a good colour for my forearms but it was difficult to match the creams with my upper arms. In the end two creams were mixed together to achieve the best colour.

Next she showed me how to apply the cream and then got me to apply some and also blend it into my natural skin tone.

After this she applied a ‘whitish’ fixing powder. She showed me how to do this properly and then how to leave it all to ‘set’ and then remove any excess powder.

She also recommended that I get a darker fixing powder to use if my arms got a bit suntanned.

I was told a few things about the products: the fixing powder contains some titanium and when this is photographed with flash photography it deflects the light and so the scars are obvious. The solution for this is to apply a light layer of bronzing powder over the top – I bought a cheap, non-sparkly one from ebay as well as the brushes to apply the fixing powder.

The products she used are all developed and tested for skin sensitivity, even after daily use etc. no reports have been made about adverse reactions.

The camouflage cream is an oil based cream – so water shouldn’t affect it and once it has been ‘fixed’ with the powder it should last the whole day without rubbing off or anything like that. It doesn’t rub off on clothing.

I’ve been out in the rain and it’s got wet and been absolutely fine – haven’t been brave enough to go swimming and bare my scars to all yet – so I can’t tell you anything about that, except that I was told it should stay on even then.

There is an SPF of either 10 or 15.

I asked about using a green base to tone down the redness – but she explained that as this is really difficult to apply to scar lines and then cover effectively she doesn’t recommend it – she said it is best for large areas like burns and birthmarks.

I was told if I felt that I needed another lesson or the colours changed etc I could just contact her directly.

After the consultation she wrote a letter to my GP with her recommendations – 3 different colours of cream and 2 different colours of fixing powder. My GP then wrote a prescription, which I took to my pharmacist. As this is not a particularly common product, it took him about a week to get it. Normal prescription costs apply – so if you get free prescriptions it doesn’t cost anything!

I understand that both the Body Shop and Vichy make some similar products, and I’m sure there are other companies who do as well. Maybe if someone has used these they could comment on them.

If you’d like to read more about scars, read what I know about Scar Reduction!

Denice

Many thanks to Denice for sharing her experiences with us.