Does beard grow on acne scars?

Scars, especially acne scars can be a real hassle to live with. Especially if you’re trying to grow a majestic beard out, and you have scars on your beard-area.

This raises the question, can beards grow on acne scars, or even other scars?

To start we need to discuss why you get these scars, and what happens in your skin.

Why does it happen?

When acne breaks out it goes very deep into your skin. The acne damages your skin, and also the tissue beneath the skin. After the outbreak pass, the body then tries to repair this is, resulting in a scar of different shapes and sizes.

There are a variety of scars that can form after the healing has taken place. But the most common of them are depressed and raised acne scars.

Depressed acne scars, are as it is described in the name. The scar is in the form of a pit. This happens because your body is producing too little collagen.

The Raised acne scars are the opposite. The scars are raised resulting in somewhat of a “hill” on your face. This is due to the fact that your body produces too much collagen, meaning it’s the direct opposite of depressed acne scars.

It is not clearly understood who are prone to get acne scars, and who are not. More studies need to be held to understand this issue. There are certain risk factors but they are not conclusive.

Acne needs to be treated to get the best outcome of the healing process. If it is left untreated, you may see scarring after it’s healed.

Can you grow a beard on scarred skin?

Short answer. No, if the scars are deep.

As you start growing your beard, you will most likely get more beard than just on your scar area. Meaning that even if you don’t get hairs growing on just your scarred area, you will still cover it up with long hairs that are in the near area of that scar. Which leads to the hairs actually covering up your scars.

However, for this method, you need to have a pretty good hair-growth on your facial hair.

Some scars are actually shallow leading the hair follicle to actually be alive still under that scar, and will eventually push through. If this is your case, you probably already know this. If you’ve started growing your beard, and you see patchy areas around that scar, chances are that you sadly cannot grow hairs in that particular area.

What can you do?

Alas, stress not my bearded friends. There are both natural ways you can give yourself the best conditions of growing a beard in the scarred area.

Grow the beard longer

First off I would definitely recommend you try to grow a long beard. And by longer, I mean about half of an inch to an inch long. With this minimum length, you can very effectively cover up the scarred spots, and nobody will even know you had acne in your younger years.

If you go for a longer beard, this will even further help you to cover up the scarred area.

Hair or Beard transplant

If you want to take the medical route, you can do what is called a hair transplant. This can be done on your face as well as on your scalp.

A beard transplant works by the way as taking a hair follicle from another part of your body and placing it on your facial area.

You have about 4000 to 7000 hair follicles that can be transplanted from your scalp to another area. Multiple of these follicles have multiple hairs in each follicle as well.

The end result is usually not noticeable to anyone else but yourself. You should the appropriate research before choosing a surgeon. Remember that if you take the cheapest one, you probably will not get as good results as the more expensive ones.

I would recommend going on forums talking to people who have done beard transplants. I’ve done this in the sense of talking about hair transplants (I’ve covered this in a past article).

Dye your beard

Another approach would be to actually dye your beard. This would give the illusion of a thicker beard, and that would also mean that your scars would also be covered up.

There isn’t that much to it when it comes to beard dyeing. Below are a few easy steps if you are looking into dyeing your beard:

1. Prepare. Dyeing a beard or even hair is a messy process, and it’s pretty good to prepare all the things necessary so you don’t end up needing things in the middle of the process.
   You need Beard dye, protective gloves, some sort of applicator, towels (paper is recommended), and some oil or vaseline to help protect your skin.
2. The dye is a chemical. So you need to test it out first on your skin so you don’t end up with a bad reaction to the dye.
3. Wash your beard. If you should dye your beard, you need to wash it prior. Imagine all the grease, oil, and other things you style your beard with. If not washed away, chances are that the dye won’t stick.
4. Protect your skin. Apply a thin layer of oil or vaseline around your skin that you do not want to be dyed.
5. Mix the dye in a bowl that’s not your mother’s finest bowls. The dye can stick to it if you’re unlucky.
6. Apply the beard dye to your beard. Use the applicator that you probably got with the package.
7. Wait, wait, and wait. Follow the instructions on the box, and when the times up, check a small portion of your beard and see if it matches your expectations.
8. Wash the dye off. First, rinse the beard, then wash it like you normally would.
9. Let it dry up, and then you’re done!

Summary

So as sad as it is, growing a beard on your scarred area might be a tough cookie. But hope is not lost. There are ways to either fix it or to cover it up.

I would argue that even if you have a scarred portion of your face, you will probably find a suitable beard that fits your face.

All cases are of course different on its own. And some of you will probably just go with growing what you have, and some of you might consider a more medical approach to your beard. Below I’ve linked to a youtube video where Matt goes through a success story with a beard transplant.