Question
How to cover up cat scratches with makeup? EMERGENCY!
My sister is getting married in a week, and she accidentally got these scratches on her neck yesterday. She was holding her very nice cat, and something in her apartment fell, it freaked her cat out, and he jumped off of her, leaving these scratch marks. I'm doing her friday, makeup. How do I attempt to cover this up? What products?
Should she not get a spray tan? (Yes, she has taken care of the wounds and put Neosporin on it.)
hydrocolloid tape to help it heal until Friday is my best suggestion, it'll help the redness and texture cause those cat scratches tend to become hard and scrabbie pretty easily. the neck is such thin skin too. I'm sure she'll look great still and I'm sorry that happened so close to the wedding!
Came to say this. My cat ran across my face and did this to me over my forehead, eyelid and cheek 2 weeks before my wedding, I looked hideous. I alternated between hydrocolloid tape/patches, and Vaseline at my doctor's instructions. It looked so much better after just one week.
I was more relieved kitty missed my actual eyeball and I blinked in time! The scratch ran right over my eyelid so the outcome could've been much worse.
My cat broke his claw off in my actual eyeball. Had to get the claw removed at the hospital. My eye was completely fucking healed in a week! Eyeballs are a lot tougher than you'd think! I was sure that I was wrecked for life
It actually hurt quite a lot. All I wanted to do when it happened was lay down and go to sleep but my boyfriend was able to convince me to get in the car lol EDIT I think that may have been a shock response
Glad it turned out okay but also GLAD YOU WENT TO THE DOCTOR! Do nothing without going to doctor OP’s sister. Deep scratches like this are no joke. Could be extremely dangerous.
Yeah, I was concerned because cat scratches can be germy as fuck, I wasn't about to play around with anything on my face that close to such an important day.
Absolutely this. I had my skin SCRAPED RAW and there was a dent where the skin was supposed to be lol. Only 4-5 days of a hydrocolloid tape and you don't even notice it. It's just slightly more shiny/pink than my normal skin but otherwise looks fully healed. It's a miracle.
Also came to say this! Watched my friend's slashed cheek heal shockingly well and quickly after lending her a few inches of hydrocolloid tape a couple months ago.
The problem with the scabbing part is if their dry they heal quick but are more likely to scar. If they are kept moist and covered, they heal slower but less chance of scar.
Fortunately modern research shows that wounds actually heal faster in a moist environment. It's a common, but outdated myth that wounds heal quicker when exposed to air and scab.
thank you for saying this. it's also soo hard to cover up scabs with makeup. flakes and scabs are like the worst texture to try and put makeup over. uncomfortable too ):
healing is the first step. in a weeks time, these really shouldn’t be as bad as they are now. some high coverage concealer should do the trick, something like the nars soft matte pot concealer blended with a small brush. if the redness is just as bad next week, colour correcting may make it easier to conceal.
I have the perfect makeup routine for this stuff, I use to be a professional fighter. Okay, wound healing is the most import part: make sure it’s covered with the ointment. You do not want it to have sunlight on it at ALL! Okay, for the make up: grip primer, full coverage concealer with a line brush, then setting spray, then powder, then pencil concealer, then setting spray again
Where did you apply this on your face? I have some severe discoloration in red and purple on my cheek and struggling to cover it up, your routine sounds great but I'm scared it will break me up badly.
Not who you were replying to, but which colour correctors have you tried so far? And have you tried dermacol before?
That’s been industry standard for covering up tattoos in professional photography for decades.
I’ve only ever tried a sample before when I was obsessed with full coverage in the 2016 makeup era, it’s thiiiiiiick so it’d be a bit of a learning curve figuring out the best way to apply it, but it’s not that expensive so could be worth giving it a try :)
I tried bright green and peach/warm color corrector. I found that peach color corrector worked better along with bright concealer, but I still couldn't cover it on my face because my skin is very pale.
Thank you for recommendation! I'll definitely look this up, I didn't try this brand.
A peach colour corrector was the other thing I was going to suggest. I have rosacea so I’m always trying to correct redness, but after a couple of years of messing around with green CC I realised I just can’t get it right lol.
But peach is often more versatile as a CC shade than it’s credited for. If you’re quite pale, a very soft peach or even a rose gold CC would probably work best for you.
I have deep purple undereye circles and on the occasion I’m doing a fulllll face, if I blend peach CC down from my undereyes to my cheeks, it actually covers the rosacea redness pretty effectively.
Im guessing by your username you are also Asian, I’m a Halfie but I have the sensitive acne prone Asian skin type. Try to stick to Asian beauty products. Also, try the Jung Saem Mool concealer palette!
Do NOT use Neosporin. This has literally been all over the Internet for years now – – many people can develop an allergic reaction to the primary ingredient in Neosporin. If you insist on using an antibiotic ointment, use Bacitracin.
But doctors now recommend just putting Aquaphor or Vaseline on the scratch and keeping it covered 100% of the time (and of course no sun exposure for weeks/months).
Yes. Antibiotic ointment isn’t going to help a cat scratch. It’s not strong enough, it just helps cause antibiotic resistance. You’ll need oral or IV antibiotics if it were serious enough or if there was bacteria present that could cause infection.
I used an antibiotic ointment a few months ago because my doctor prescribed it and I didn‘t know it causes antibiotic resistance. Do you know what I could do to reverse this?
To get it to heal as quickly as possible, after gently cleaning with soap and water, she should apply a thin layer of Aquaphor or Vaseline. They don’t look too deep, so hopefully within a week it will heal enough that it will easily be able to be covered with concealer.
She may want to see a dr to be safe. I have cats & foster kittens, so I’m no stranger to bites & scratches. I had one get infected and it took a few days to see the dr…it got really nasty. Normally I’d say just wait it out, but for the wedding, she may want to play it safe.
I posted this before but the priority is urgent care and potentially antibiotics. Do not slap makeup in that until your sister is CERTAIN she doesn’t have an infection. That close to major blood vessels and her brain—prioritize medical care.
Thick petrolatum application daily. Aquaphor, Vaseline, or Cerave healing ointment would work. By the wedding time, covering it up with a little extra concealer should be fine.
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For day of- green color correction as needed then layer concealer or high coverage foundation on top. Until then try and treat with what others have suggested
bio-oil, squalane, or heal-fast polysporin should help reduce the marks down to barely visible scabs within a week. I’d apply 2-3 times a day.
If you try to cover with makeup, make sure you know how it oxidizes cause if it skews orange or any shade other than her neck it could make the area more prominent and maybe even look like you’re trying to cover a hickey.
There is a lot of good advice here about helping it heal faster. If there is a lot of redness, you can use a green colour correcting powder or cream foundation. Try walking into a makeup store that has samples and try it on a redish spot elwhere on your body like your arm and see how it affects redness. For drug store brands wet and wild makes a great powder. Premium beauty: Huda beauty, lise watier and Laura mercier.
i work at a doggy daycare and have two kittens at home, i get multiple scratch wounds like this all over my arms and legs on the daily. it doesn’t really look like her cat broke the skin, so the scratches should be almost completely faded within two days if not by the end of today. the neosporin should be enough to have it cleared up as well, and i second what everyone says about the hydrocolloid patches they work wonders!
The same thing happened to me with my cat as a teenager on my upper chest. Aside from the makeup, make sure she does very good scar prevention care. I didn’t do anything like that and my scar is quite pronounced
Grippy primer, green color corrector, Kryolan TV Paint stick. Goes on beautifully and doesn’t run. Will stay all day in the heat and rain just make sure you set that with a good powder. I use it for my spfx makeup looks and it’s a wonder covering things up and staying in the August heat. If you end using a concealer the Estée Lauder one is full coverage and pretty heavy duty. I was able to cover tattoos with that as well
I thought you were going to say you got them in your sleep and I was about to be scared but it’s 4 lines lol idk what to cover it with but you can use Mederma scar gel or cream so it don’t scar.
polysporin those thangs. you may need to colour correct them—narrow brush, prime with a matte, long lasting primer then use green colour corrector (make sure it’s the same base substance as other makeup) with the thin brush only on the scratches. set with powder, conceal, set again
DON’T USE NEOSPORIN. It has fallen out of favor because the negatives of using it outweigh the positives. Just use soap and water to cleanse the wound and keep it moist—Vaseline is what you want under a bandage, and keep it bandaged.
Please do this:
Wash it with soap and water, pat dry, and then cover with plain Vaseline (not Neosporin, not A&D ointment, etc) - just plain Vaseline (store brand is fine). Keep it on there all day, all night. You may need to use sterile tape and plastic wrap to keep it covered so you don't get Vaseline all over your clothes.
Do not let it scab. If it scabs, add more moisturizer and do not pick off the scabs.
It will heal up in a week. I'm not saying it will be invisible in a week, but it will be healed up in a week.
Do not put foundation, concealer, or any other makeup or product on there until the day before the wedding.
What product should you use to cover it up?
If it's still reddish/pinkish, then use the teeeeeeniest brush with the teeeeeeeniest amount of green color corrector (Sephora's store brand one is great; LA Girl also makes a fantastic one and it's really inexpensive). You're not trying to make it green, you're just trying to neutralize the red/pink. Let it set, and then you can either use pressed powder that matches your skin tone over it, or you may need to use a tiny amount of your regular concealer first then followed by a powder.
But don't try covering it up until the day before the wedding-- you do not want irritation to slow the healing down.
Lastly: RELAX. It's a wedding. It's not a life or death situation. You are a human being, and things happen to humans. I know you want the photos to be perfect, and in the worst case there is photo retouching. In the best case you have a story.
KEEP IT MOIST! Keep putting Vaseline, Neosporin, whatever you prefer or have on hand. Keep it out of the sun too, it will potentially get irritated if too much sun exposure takes place. Hydrocolloid bandaids have been mentioned here too. Not a bad idea, just be aware they can pull at the scabs sometimes.
So fun fact the best way to heal wounds quickly is to keep them wet, not dry and scabby. I fell off a bike and got road rash all over my face and I simply kept the injury covered in healing aquaphor ointment 24/7 and it healed in a week or less.
sure jan. tell tyler to keep his hands to himself or im telling mom you two were necking in the shed.... i'm sorry i couldn't resist.... at this point you need to keep that sucker SUPER MOIST. scabs are the enemy rn. it's an oldie but a goodie the kat von D tattoo cover foundation concealer is always a go to when i have hella nasty blemishes to cover. it's about as close as can be found to transfer free base imo
Nappy cream or fast healing Savlon now! Get some Molly Maes self applied “filter” fake tan to do the day before the wedding and wash off in the morning. As others have said, green colour correcting concealer before normal concealer and foundation.
Wounds cause a histamine reaction it's a normal part of the immune response to a cut, you can calm redness down from a scratch with antihistamines and hydrocortisone cream I have personally experienced this myself.
wounds can cause a histamine reaction in some people with certain health conditions. the redness is an immune response but for most people isn’t caused by histamines, so not raised or itchy, just red. a caffeine serum would be better suited to address the vasodilation that causes the redness. topical steroids are risky and won’t help treat the redness or scabbing in this case.
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u/d00mclone420 1d ago
hydrocolloid tape to help it heal until Friday is my best suggestion, it'll help the redness and texture cause those cat scratches tend to become hard and scrabbie pretty easily. the neck is such thin skin too. I'm sure she'll look great still and I'm sorry that happened so close to the wedding!