Hi!

I’m back with a new post today – and I think it’s an important one. I’ll be explaining how to cover self harm scars effectively with makeup, but to do so in the most helpful and simple way possible I’m going to include pictures of the covering process. That means I am going to slap a big ol’ TRIGGER WARNING for self harm/self injury on this post, because my legs, especially pre-makeup, have obvious self harm scars. They are scars, not cuts, all at least 6 months old, and they are not nearly as bad as some self harm scars I’ve seen in my day – but still, if you think that seeing images like that might upset you, please stop reading now. I don’t want to upset or trigger anyone.

To add some content below my trigger warning I’ll include a silly selfie with me wearing black lipstick that I took tonight – I don’t want triggering pictures near the very top of this post/the page, because then someone might see the images before they see or read my trigger warning and leave. Plus you all know how I love to show off a cute selfie and promote self love. The lipstick is Black Knight by MAC.

yes, I’m making a silly face! Why am I doing that with my mouth? Who knows.

Sometime you may need to cover self harm scars, for instance you might potentially want to for a job interview, if you have self harm scars. If you’ve got this problem, fear not, I can help you! This is the most effective method I’ve found, and I’ve tried several methods of covering scars (including photoshop, haha!) If you are reading this and you haven’t self harmed yet, but you are planning on it and want to know how to cover the cuts after, PLEASE don’t. Just… please don’t. Call a crisis line, talk to someone you trust, try using temporary tattoos instead or using another coping technique (there are even more on google!).

Also, hopefully by now anybody who could be triggered by self harm scars has left… so let’s get right to the how-to process!

I’ll be covering one of my most visible scars to demonstrate for this post. I want to note that, unless you use all waterproof products (which I didn’t – and don’t worry, there’s a list of what you’ll need below), this probably won’t survive swimming, rain, heavy sweating or other things that tend to make makeup rub or wear off. This is very long-wearing, but it isn’t waterproof (or magical).

Here’s a picture of my leg with the scar I’ll be covering, with no makeup on it whatsoever:

the arrow points to the scar I’ll be covering up with makeup

Not so pretty, right? I imagine you can totally understand why sometimes I’d want to cover that scar (and other scars).

Here’s a list of What You’ll Need for this (I haven’t been sponsored by any of the brands I mention, but you can substitute a similar but different product for any of these, there are many out there):

1. a heavy coverage creamy concealer in your skin tone (tip: try to not only match the shade, but also the tone to your skin – you either have warm, neutral or cool toned skin, and a matching concealer will look more natural) such as this Physician’s Formula concealer
2. a powder foundation in your skin tone – either pressed or loose powder is okay – two pressed powders that I like are this Lorac powder or this L’Oreal powder
3. a setting brush – I like the Real Techniques setting brush, but any similar brush will do. In a pinch, a powder brush/kabuki brush/sponge works too, but a setting brush will add more coverage and help the makeup last longer.
4. (optional) a face/skin primer – this isn’t necessary and I didn’t use one for this tutorial, but if you want then you could apply a primer to clean skin where you want the scars covered before you start using the other products. If you do use primer, make sure you don’t use one with shimmer!

as you can see, I’ve hit pan on this powder from using it so much – it’s also a great face powder 🙂

here you can see some concealer next to the scar I’ll be covering…

…and here I’ve used my index finger to spread it over the scar and surrounding skin to fully cover it.

I use the pad part of my finger, not the very tips of my fingers

a vast improvement for that particular scar!