So many of us have been there: caught up in the moment, unable to peel yourself away from your partner’s skin and later, once you’ve uh, done the deed, you realise that oh. Oh no. They’ve left a mark. Several, in fact.
You have work. You have a meeting. You’re seeing family soon. You can’t take another round of dunkings in the group chat. What are you, 15?!
Thankfully, you don’t need to be sweating it out in a roll-neck jumper to avoid anybody seeing your love bite, as Dr Karan Raj (@dr.karanr) has shared a fix for getting rid of them – or at the very least, stopping them from standing out quite so much.
How to get rid of a love bite
So, before you do anything else, apply something incredibly cool to the area like a cold compress.
It’s vital to do this in the first 12-24 hours after getting a love bite – even if you haven’t started bruising yet. This causes blood vessels to vasoconstrict, meaning they’ll narrow and limit the amount of blood that leaks out of the capillaries, reducing bruising.
Some people on TikTok have been sharing how they’ve used whisks (yes, that handy kitchen utensil) to massage the love bite area, with a view to reducing the bruising even further. And some of the before and after images are impressive.
According to Dr Raj, this could “theoretically” work as it might disperse the blood vessels even more, or break them down, which would improve their absorption – but he does warn that kitchen utensils should really just stay in the kitchen.
What’s more, Net Doctor warns that if you massage the area too intensely it might make any bruising worse. Their advice? “Go gentle, and massage the area for just a few minutes at a time.”
Dr Raj also warns that the egg beater method shouldn’t be done in the first 24 hours after getting the bruise. And he urges not to apply heat during this period either because any further agitation or irritation will aggravate the bruise that is developing.
But if you are already seeing red and bruising, it’s too late to apply a cold compress and this is when you should apply heat to the love bite or, as Dr Raj calls them, ‘biological love tattoos’.
This is because it will improve circulation and reabsorption of old blood globules which may bring down the starkness of the bruise.
Other methods you might want to try, according to Net Doctor, include:
- Applying aloe vera gel, vitamin K cream or vitamin C cream to the area,
- Adding one or two drops of peppermint oil to the area and massaging gently,
- Applying cocoa butter to the area twice a day for two weeks.
Where was this advice when I was a teenager?