Winter is a time when people either get more acne breakouts, more severe breakouts or simply notice their sports more often.
There are many different reasons for acne being more prevalent in winter, from sudden changes in diet to the sharp changes in humidity caused by the cold winds and the much more intense heating systems needed to deal with cold snaps.
One of the biggest worries people may have is acne scarring, a permanent marking that can be left behind after acne heals.
This is most commonly caused by scratching or popping spots rather than treating it or leaving it to heal, although it often depends on the individual breakout and its severity.
Whilst acne scars can take many different forms, they are typically grouped into five different types; there are three types of atrophic scars that cause depressions beneath the skin’s topmost layer, as well as hypertrophic and keloid scars.
There are a lot of different treatments for scarring, many of which involve either removing the topmost layer of the skin, encouraging the skin’s natural healing process or using fillers to raise the skin up, with a skin expert likely to recommend one treatment over another depending on your circumstances.
Here are the five main types of scarring and the most common treatments.
Boxcar Scars
Commonly caused by wider breakouts, blistering rashes or chickenpox and most often seen on the cheeks and jawline, boxcar scars are square pockmarks that resemble box-shaped craters.
They need relatively thick skin to form, but can also be treated either by lifting the skin up or removing the top layer of skin and letting it heal naturally.
Rolling Scars
Notable compared to the other two types of atrophic scars in that they don’t have a sudden drop-off point, rolling acne scarring tends to look like uneven rolls of skin, caused by bands of scar tissue forming in underlying layers.
Icepick Scars
The most common type of acne scarring and also the most difficult to treat, ice pick scars resemble pinpricks and are narrow indentations often found on the cheeks.
They require much more aggressive treatments than other types of scarring because they can often affect several underlying layers of the skin compared to the other two types of atrophic scarring.
Hypertrophic And Keloid Scars
The final two types are somewhat unique and are differentiated less by type and more by intensity.
Rather than causing indentations and craters in the skin, hypertrophic and keloid scars instead cause lumps of scar tissue to form. This can have many causes but is most commonly the result of the build-up of scar tissue from various breakouts.
Hypertrophic scars generally are the same size as the spot itself and are limited to where the skin was damaged, most commonly caused by damage or tension to the spot.
Meanwhile, keloid scars can be larger, sometimes significantly larger than the spots that caused them and can be a cause for concern beyond simply aesthetics.
The treatment for both is to reduce the height of the scarring so that the skin can be more easily smoothed. Most commonly this is done via laser therapy but sometimes injections of steroids or even surgery can be required in particularly major cases.
