You know what’s hot? That really hot feeling when your partner is biting and sucking on your neck while you make out. But, you know what’s not so hot? The hickey you end up with.
Whether you’re just trying to play it on the down low or just aren’t ready to share that awesome new relationship with the world just yet, hickies can spill your secret long before you’re ready. If you’re wondering how to get rid of a hickey, here’s some great information.
WHAT IS A HICKEY?
A hickey is basically a bruise, which is caused when blood vessels rupture. In the case of a hickey, the bruise is caused by pressure, or a lack thereof, especially on a tender part of the body such as your neck. The broken blood vessels leak blood out under the skin, leaving a dark spot. So now that you’ve got one, how do you get rid of your hickey?
They almost always happen when you’re man is sucking on your skin during kissing.
TECHNIQUES FOR GETTING RID OF HICKIES
Hickeys, like any bruise, have two stages that matter in terms of getting rid of them, the initial ‘red’ stage and then afterwards, the brown stage. Why does this matter? Because, depending on the stage your hickey is at, it makes a big difference in terms of how you treat it. When you want to know how to get rid of hickies, you want to be sure you’re using a treatment that will actually make it go away faster, not stick around longer.
In the beginning, you will be in the ‘red’ stage, and the hickey is still bright red, the color of the blood that is still running under your skin from the broken blood vessels. At this point, your best treatments involve moving the blood away from the hickey using the following methods.
- Chill Out –For the first 12-24 hours, putting an ice pack, frozen peas or a frozen spoon on the hickey will help make it go away by restricting the amount of blood that is leaking from the broken blood vessels. Make sure you put a cloth between the ice or cold item and your skin as causing cold damage to your skin won’t help your hickey go away faster.
- Tighten Up –Use an astringent (something to tighten your skin) like calamine lotion, cucumber, ajwain (aka carom), rose water or oatmealon your skin over the hickey to tighten the tissues, forcing fresh blood away from the surface of the skin and away from the broken blood vessels. Other good options include rubbing alcohol or witch hazel, used 1-3 times daily, depending on the sensitivity or dryness of your skin. For more sensitive skin, try a raspberry leaf tea as a treatment.
- Heal It –Aloe Vera gel is awesome beyond its natural cooling abilities for burns, whether they’re from the sun or the stove; it’s also great when you’re trying to keep a hickey from taking off because of its soothing, anti-inflammatory and healing properties. Aloe Vera gel is also great for giving your man a really slippery handjob.
- Bring on the Vitamin (K) –Vitamin K is a powerful anti-coagulant, so supplementing with it will help your body absorb the blood in the hickey faster. It’s common in spinach and other dark, leafy greens, or you can pierce or cut a supplement capsule to spread directly on the hickey 2-3 times daily.
- Herbal Healing –When push comes to shove, Mother Nature has given us some great plants to help deal with hickeys. Arnica helps make bruising go away quickly and is usually easy to find in a health food store’s essential and massage oil section. Peppermint is another anti-inflammatory that can help push blood away from the hickey and is closer to hand than you may think – try putting mint toothpaste on the hickey 2-3 times daily for 10-15 minutes.
WHAT IF YOUR HICKEY ISN’T RED ANYMORE?
If the hickey has turned brown, green, purple or yellow, the techniques above won’t make any difference and can actually make the hickey stick around longer. At this point, you’re trying to get the bruise to heal as quickly as possible. Here are a few different ways you can get it to go away faster.
- Massage Therapy –Though some people swear by running a comb or toothbrush over the hickey, this can actually make the situation worse by causing additional skin damage, so if you do try it, go very gently on your skin. Just use your fingers (or your partner’s, since it’s their fault anyway) and the increased blood flow will help clear out the damaged cells more quickly.
- Turn on the Heat – Try placing or rubbing a warm, damp face cloth over your hickey. Much like the massage idea, the additional heat will crank up your body’s healing process.
- Add Some NSAIDS –Aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen sodium will help increase circulation, moving the bruised material away from your skin faster. By the way NSAIDS are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
WHEN YOUR HICKEY JUST WON’T GO
Of course, there’s always the chance you’ve managed to get a particularly stubborn hickey that just won’t budge. If you’ve tried the above options and nothing seems to make it go away any faster, you’ve got a few different options to consider.
- Accessorize it –Wearing a fashionable new scarf to cover up your love bite will conceal it; just remember, if it’s too fabulous a scarf, it may draw more attention to the area you’re trying to cover up.
- Kiss and Make Up –In this case, concealer will work wonders to cover up your unwanted hickey. Just remember, after putting the concealer on, to add foundation and powder to both sides of your neck to make it look more symmetrical. Nothing says hickey like an obvious cover-up job on your neck.
- Just Stay In –Okay, we realize unless you work from home or have a really awesome excuse as to why you can’t go out, this probably won’t work. But if you can, roll with it!
- Suck it Up –They weren’t kidding when they said that “honesty is the best policy”. If you think it won’t cause serious problems at work or home, just show it off, loud and proud. If you’re old enough to get a hickey in the first place, you’re probably old enough to deal with the consequences.
Like most sexual activities that can cause problems, the best way to avoid getting a hickey is to not encourage or allow that kind of behavior in the first place. Try something similar like french kissing instead or just do something else during foreplay. But, in the real world, when passion has you under its thrall and you’d much rather your partner continue kissing and sucking on your neck, you can always use some of the above ideas if you need to know how to get rid of a hickey. If none of those techniques work for you, you can always take that vacation time you’ve got coming, right?
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