A hickey, known as a love bite, is a bruise-like mark on the skin that is caused by someone aggressive biting or sucking their partner’s skin. It is formed when the smallest blood vessels called capillaries are ruptured and the blood trickled into the surrounding tissue under the skin. It is normally red at first but turns brown or purple when it does not get oxygen any longer.
Whereas some people feel pleased and satisfied about hickeys, the others feel shame and embarrassment and they want to hide or remove these. Six following tips on how to remove a hickey will help you stop worrying about it.
- Cold compress
Cold compress is the first way you should do when having hickeys. It helps stimulate broken capillaries to be constricted and cut down bleeding under the skin and swelling. To do this method, wrap some ice cubes up in a towel and press it on the affected area gently for fifteen minutes. After taking it out for fifteen minutes, press it again for fifteen minutes. Do this process again and again several times to get good results. However, watch out for not pressing ice cube directly because it can cause frostbite.
Alternatively, you can put a spoon in the freezer for about fifteen minutes. Take it out and then use it to massage onto the hickeys. Then you can know how to remove a hickey.
- Hot compress
Hot compress is used when you use the cold compress after two or three days and the hickeys are still not dissolved. Simply, dip a towel into warm water and put it on the affected area. It helps improve blood circulation and lighten the color of the bruise. Otherwise, you can use a bottle of warm water or a hot bag instead. Make sure to avoid too hot water to prevent burns.
- Aloe Vera
Aside from being one of the most effective beauty ingredients, aloe vera is useful to treat the hickeys. When combining with the parsley, it has antibiotic and anti-inflammatory effects and improves the hickeys quickly. Grind aloe vera and parsley to have a paste. Rub this paste on the affected area three times per day to remove the bruise and relieve pain. Another way on how to get rid of hickeys is extracting gel from a fresh aloe leaf and apply it on the hickeys twice or three times daily. Both of the ways get the same results.
- Alcohol
Drinking alcohol is a long-standing habit of human beings. It is an indispensable drink in etiquette as well as daily life and it is also considered as a harmful drink. However, it has some good effects including treating hickeys.
Alcohol is capable of eliminating toxins, cooling and relieving the bruise. Rub alcohol on the affected area and massage gently three times a day. Otherwise, use a cotton swab moistened with alcohol and then rub on the hickeys. Leave it dry and apply moisturizer immediately, which prevents the skin from drying out.
- Apple cider vinegar
Apple cider vinegar has countless effects that you may not even know about such as cleaning the house, overcoming fatigue in the body, making delicious and so on.One of these is the way on how to get rid of hickeys. It helps treat inflammation, swelling and bruises very effectively.
Cut a few slices of dried onion and mix them with apple cider vinegar. Apply this mixture on the bruised area. Alternatively, just moisten a small cotton ball with apple cider vinegar and directly apply it on the hickeys. Otherwise, mix apple cider with egg white to apply it on the bruise.
- Banana peels
After you eat a banana already, don’t hurry to throw its peel away because it is beneficial to hickey removal. The banana peel can cool and relieve the hickeys very effectively. You rub the inside of a banana peel on the hickeys and leave it for ten or thirty minutes. Do this three times a day for the hickeys to disappear completely.
A hickey is a bruise – the blood vessels under the skin rupture and bleed into the surrounding tissue. Until the blood reabsorbs the only thing you can do is keep them covered up.As far as I know, hickeys are formed from a concentration of blood in that one area (because it was being sucked on).Definitely it works: Use a plastic fork…or better yet a comb…and comb through the hickey many many many many times. This will hopefully disperse the blood. You may not get all of it away, but after that, use a little bit of concealer/foundation/skin-colored makeup.