Scarification Aftercare
Cleaning
Wash your new scar three times daily with an antibacterial/antimicrobial soap and 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, Dr. Bronners, or Hibiclens 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 with an open hand no need to aggressively scrub. Rinse with freshwater and repeat. Rinse once more and pat dry, gently, with a new, disposable, paper towel. Your goal here is to clean and remove plasma build-up. The Idea is to keep scabs from forming for as long as possible.
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.
Once clean apply a thin layer of Aquaphor over your scar, keeping it moist to prevent scabs from forming. Apply throughout the day to maintain a high level of moistness.
Continue these steps until day 14 of your healing cycle.
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 dependent 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.
