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After I had surgery last year, I was worried that nothing would ever help the two bright pink, inch-long scars. I looked into pricey options like lasers and peels, but they required several sessions and downtime, which in some cases, wasn’t insignificant.
I’d heard about Bio-Oil throughout my years as an editor in the beauty industry, but honestly, I thought it sounded too good to be true and didn’t want to get my hopes up on a product that proved to be ineffective.
But after reading several of Bio-Oil’s 90,000 5-star reviews on Amazon and reevaluating my options — spend a zillion dollars (approximately) or use this oil twice a day for a few months — I opted to test out Bio-Oil.
Products Tested: Bio-Oil Skincare Oil
Product Ingredients: Chamomile, sunflower and lavender oils, plus vitamins A and E
Period of Testing: I began to see results a month after the brand’s promised 3-month timeline. I’ve continued using the oil and my results have become more pronounced.
Price of Product: $26
Testing Verdict: With consistent application and a dose of patience, you’ll begin to see results slowly but surely, and they’ll only improve over time.
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What is Bio-Oil?
Designed to target and treat skin discoloration and uneven tone — most commonly acne scars or stretch marks — Bio-Oil is a gentle oil-based liquid made up of vitamins V and E as well as chamomile, sunflower and lavender oils. It promotes new collagen growth to support skin renewal and elasticity. In theory, speedier cell turnover equals speedier skin regeneration, effectively sloughing away, little by little, the appearance of scars or marks on skin.
Still, I wasn’t sold on how this over-the-counter product was powerful enough to reconcile post-operative scarring. Little acne scars? Maybe. But definitely not my surgical scars.
How to Use Bio-Oil
Bio-Oil is ridiculously easy to use. The instructions are straightforward and my estimation that it would add only a minute or two to my routine was accurate. Morning and night, I would take a bit of the Bio-Oil — two or three shakes — into my hands, rub my hands together and pat the lightweight oil directly onto my scars.
My skin absorbed the Bio-Oil quickly, which was a delightful surprise because oils tend to take longer to sink into skin and often just lay on the surface (a key reason why dermatologists advise applying oils last in a skin care routine).
The skin care product felt lightweight, falling somewhere between a water and an oil-like consistency (the liquids in the product separate, so be sure to give it a good shake before using), without any trace of a goopy or greasy feeling like the one I expected.
Determined to give this product my best shot, I was pretty religious about the twice daily application and only skipped an application once during a day I was traveling.
The Bio-Oil Testing Results
Think of Bio-Oil as a slow and steady process. I didn’t see results overnight, or even after a few weeks. It took a solid four or five months before I began to see a visible improvement in my scar’s color tone; it went from a bright pink into a dulled down, more subtle, blush hue that started to blend in with my skin, rather than scream for attention the way it did previously. That subtle change in coloring was all I needed to keep up the momentum, and I’ve continued to use the oil twice daily, with a few exceptions — like when Amazon ran out of stock — ever since.
Over time, the coloring has evolved to camouflage into my natural skin tone even further, to the point where I’m not so self-conscious or worried about whether people can spot it so quickly anymore — because I know they can’t, unless they’re staring, which is rude.
This affordable beauty product on Amazon surprised me at nearly every turn, and if you have the patience to stick it out and keep going even when you don’t see any change, you may be surprised, too.
