You ran to your medicine cabinet, grabbed your go-to treatment, tamed that sudden breakout, and thought it was finally time to relax. But not so fast—the acne might be gone, but now you have to deal with the scars it left behind.

One of the most annoying things about having acne is that it can leave scars that linger long after you’ve treated your breakout. Luckily, acne scars are treatable too, and with the right choices, you can make them less likely to happen again.

Why do acne scars happen?

To understand why acne sometimes leaves a scar, you need to know why acne happens in the first place. Acne develops when one of the many pores your skin uses to release oil and sweat gets clogged up by dead skin, oils, or bacteria. Sometimes, the acne pore swells up and breaks down, spilling their unsavory contents into nearby tissue. But that’s not actually what causes the scar—it’s your body’s response.

When your skin gets damaged, your body tries to fix it by creating more collagen (the stuff that makes skin strong and healthy). If it doesn’t make collagen fast enough, you might lose tissue, which is what happens when a bygone blemish leaves behind a small indentation. But making too much collagen causes the opposite problem: a raised scar instead of a pit.

Acne doesn’t always leave a scar, but most people with acne experience some scarring—as high as 95%!

What does acne scarring look like?

As we mentioned earlier, there are two main types of acne scars—depending on how much collagen your body makes, they can be raised or indented. Raised scars can be hypertrophic (these may be red at first, but usually become flat and pale) or keloidal (firm, smooth, and typically large), but indented acne scars are much more frequent.

The scientific name for those pit-like indents is atrophic scarring. There are three types of atrophic acne scars:

• Boxcar: Wide, shallow scars that have well-defined edges (like a box does)
• Ice pick: Narrow scars that extend deep into the skin
• Rolling: Broad scars with irregular edges that make skin look wavy

You might be wondering..

Are acne scars permanent?

We know the most important question for you when it comes to acne scars is probably “Do they ever go away?” While mild acne scars can clear up on their own, atrophic acne scars don’t just disappear if you wait long enough (and neither do keloids). On the bright side, there are plenty of effective treatments you can use to make scars less noticeable or even eliminate them completely.

How do I get rid of acne scars?

There are many science-backed ways to reduce the appearance of scars, but they generally fall into a few buckets:

• Microneedling and dermabrasion: These procedures use different tools to pierce or erode the upper layers of your skin, which encourages it to send in the healing collagen. These techniques usually aren’t as effective for ice pick or boxcar scars.
• Laser treatments: Lasers can use heat to flatten raised scars and lighten discolored ones, or light to penetrate skin and promote the healing process. Light-based laser treatment can cause fewer side effects but may not be as effective, and people with deep ice pick scars may not get much use out of any laser therapy.
• Chemical peels: These treatments are chemicals that strip the outer layer of your skin, leaving behind a smoother surface. The upside of these is that you can exfoliate your skin without poking it with a bunch of needles, but the downside is that they can’t target scars as precisely as a laser could. You can get a chemical peel at a dermatologist’s office, but plenty of over-the-counter and prescription products include the same active ingredients, such as glycolic acid and salicylic acid.

If you have stubborn scars, a dermatologist might recommend that you try a combination of these treatments, or something else entirely. Already tried all of these things and starting to lose hope?

There are plenty of more precise treatment options for tricky scars, like subcision (this is when—brace yourself—a needle gets inserted into your skin from multiple directions), punch excision (the scar gets cut out and replaced with a graft), fat transplants, and even experimental treatments like stem cell therapy.

How can I prevent acne scars?

How do you prevent acne you already have from leaving a scar? “Avoid picking or squeezing your acne,” says Facet Medical Director Dr. Peter Young, “since these actions can lead to scarring.”

But when it comes to acne scars, the old adage holds up: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, the best way to prevent acne scars is with good skincare, which is what helps you avoid acne in the first place.