I Slathered Coconut Oil On My Face For A Week And It Kind Of Worked

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, when skin is healing the damage of acne, the body produces collagen. What causes acne scars is too much or too little collagen, leading to either raised or depressed acne scars.

Acne scars are more common with inflammatory acne and a lack of treatment, and susceptibility to them can be genetic. To avoid developing acne scars, it is recommended to not pick at spots, though most of us do anyway.

Thankfully, there are ways to heal them.

There are many benefits of coconut oil on skin. The fatty acids help maintain moisture and keep skin smooth. Coconut oil applied on skin helps protect from infections through pores or open wounds.

Vitamin E and proteins help with cell repair and regrowth, and they unclog pores, which makes coconut oil good for acne-prone skin. Just as coconut oil works on a sunburn, it helps heal wounds and its anti-inflammatory properties help fade acne scars.

At least those are the claims and the scientific explanations for why coconut oil is supposed to work for acne scars. Let's see if it really works.

1. Start with clean, bare skin.
2. Rub ¼ teaspoon coconut oil on acne scars with your fingers and allow it to absorb.
3. Leave the coconut oil on your skin overnight.
4. Hope to banish acne scars.
5. Wash face as usual in the morning.

For many years, my face was covered in acne, but I have found a skincare routine to reduce it by a lot. Unfortunately, you can see I’m left with a lot of scars. My problem areas are concentrated mostly around my cheeks and chin, with a few on my forehead as well. I’d tried to figure out how to get rid of acne scars for a while before turning to coconut oil for help.

Usually, people use coconut oil for drier skin types, but my skin is mostly oily-combination with some dry patches, so this test was a bit scary for me. If you have oily skin, be very careful not to use too much coconut oil for your face, because that can lead to an excess of oil.

I started with a clean face, fresh out of the shower, and applied the coconut oil on my acne scars, pretty much all over my face. I’d never used coconut oil for my face, so this definitely felt strange.

First impressions, it felt really oily, but that was expected. It made my face look and feel like a greaseball, but it smelled fantastic. The coconut oil didn’t feel too heavy on the skin and was a lot thinner than I'd anticipated. As I was applying it, I was concerned about getting it all over my pillow. My hair also kept getting stuck in it, but I could feel my skin absorbing the coconut oil.

So after leaving it on overnight, I woke up feeling super greasy and shiny, and immediately wanted to wash my face. I probably used too much the night before, but fortunately, there were no new breakouts. There were no major differences yet, but I did notice I didn’t have any of the usual dry patches on my skin.

A friend of mine, who is a strong believer in coconut oil for skin, recommended I try applying it with a cotton round instead, so I did. I was oil-free the next morning except for the area around my nose. I think I noticed a slight fade in my acne scars, but I’m not sure if I was lying to myself. I hoped to see a bigger difference in my acne scars by the next day.

Throughout the day, I felt myself getting oily quicker than usual, with no changes to my everyday makeup routine that typically keeps my face oil-free for a full work day.

By nighttime, a couple of the breakouts I had felt forming underneath my skin surfaced. So in terms of coconut oil for acne itself, it seems to ripen blemishes quicker.

By Day 3, I was starting to get a bit worried about using coconut oil on my oily skin. I woke up in the morning looking more oily than I did when I applied the coconut oil on my acne scars the night before, which was very strange. I’m not sure why my face was producing so much more oil when it was getting moisture from the coconut oil. It's summer and starting to get hotter, so that may have played a role.

At this point I was thinking even if coconut oil is good for acne scars, I don’t know if the benefits of coconut oil outweigh the greaseball factor for those with oily skin. I would have been more willing to use this if the results were more noticeably different overnight, but it’s looking to be more of a gradually-over-time situation.

I decided to give this test one more shot to show real results.

I took the time to actually look back at my before photos and see if there was any difference. At this point, whether coconut oil works for acne scars needed to be a yes for me to continue this test. I didn’t like waking up feeling greasy and having that excess of oil throughout the day. Though it didn’t break me out, it was still not fun to wake up feeling gross.

Long story short, so far, the coconut oil helped for acne scar color but not texture.

If I looked closely and really examined my scars, I saw a difference. I wasn’t lying to myself this time. The coconut oil was helping my scars, but it didn’t completely eliminate any yet. They were definitely still there, but not as dark and red as they had been. They blended into my skin tone more and didn't stand out as much. However, the coconut oil for depressed acne scars didn’t work as well yet.

I can definitely say that if you’re looking to get rid of acne scars fast, coconut oil probably isn’t the way to go. I could still see the acne scars on my face and none of them seemed to be completely gone, which is why I had to look so closely.

I decided to keep going with the experiment after looking back at those photos. The coconut oil was probably not making my skin as happy as I would have liked it to, but it was doing something good, so I wasn't going to quit just yet.

New breakouts surfaced once again. I had a ripe blemish on my upper lip area and one on my chin that was living life to the fullest. My acne scars hadn't changed much since the day before, but I stayed hopeful that it would continue to help along the way.

Bathroom lighting isn't always the best, so I thought I would take a photo in natural light for a clearer look at my progress. You can definitely still see my acne scars in this picture, and looking at these photos alone made me think there was no difference from Day 1. The coconut oil had mostly just faded the less prominent spots around my cheek area, which is where my acne scars are more severe. I could still play connect the dots on my face though, so I wasn't going to convert into a die-hard coconut oil fan for acne scars yet.

I will say, though, the blemish that popped up on Day 5 was basically gone, so that was a win. It's difficult for me to form a solid opinion on coconut oil for my skin, with all the pros and cons happening simultaneously.

We have reached the end of this week-long experiment of coconut oil for acne scars! The texture of my skin has smoothed out overall, but I cannot say that I don't see my acne scars anymore. My sister was very insistent that there was no visible difference from the previous week and believes it was a waste of my time, so that confirmed nothing. My boyfriend thought my acne scars were my contour, so I guess that means they're still quite dark.

I hope this image helps you see what I see. My acne scars are still very red, and you can match each individual mark from the left image to the right image, so nothing is completely gone. The texture of the skin on my forehead does look smoother, and the spots on my cheek are more pink than deep red. The less-severe spots toward my jaw are noticeably faded as are those on my upper lip.

So does coconut oil work for acne scars? Yes, it does, but I don't think I'll continue using it. I don't like the feeling of the oil on my skin, and the benefits haven't given me enough reason to continue this every day. Coconut oil for acne has been great, though. It ripens and eliminates spots a lot quicker than normal. I wholeheartedly agree that coconut oil works best for those with dry to normal skin types, so if that's you and you are looking for a good all-in-one skin product, this might work.

Would you try coconut oil for your acne scars? If this experiment has helped you, make sure to SHARE for everyone else that might want to test it as well!