How castor oil healed my scar (with before and after photos!)
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I’ve been writing about castor oil a lot, mainly because I’ve had some wonderful results from it personally. Among other things, castor oil has aided in my recovery from PCOS and dissolved a painful calcium deposit on my heel. That it could do those things were amazing to me — it still is.
Sometimes though, I find myself reluctant to write about my own positive experiences because the extent of my successful healing can sound like I’m making it all up. I think part of it is because the “accepted” way of getting treatment for most of the modern Western world is to go to a doctor, take lots of pills (ALL of which are liver-toxic, by the way) or go for painful surgery (which may or may not make things worse). If you do these things, no one will question your sanity or your prudence.
This is despite the fact that most modern, accepted treatments = expensive, with possibly harmful side effects, may/may not even work, usually become ineffective when discontinued (which means you are chained for life), only seeks to treat the surface symptoms, abandons even the pretense of healing as its aim (this last one makes me want to alternately cry and tear my hair out because it is sheer madness… unethical, even).
Meanwhile, the method of treatment I’m proposing (castor oil) is so simple, cheap and effective that many will write it off without even giving it a chance. After all, how can it work when it’s not expensive, painful and harmful to us, right? I know some might mock me or think me as simple-minded, or even worse, a scam artist…
The other day, someone asked me in the comments if I was writing about castor oil because I make money by selling it. I do not produce or sell castor oil on this site or anywhere else. I never have. All the ads on my article pages are contextual ads, not direct product ads. My first instinct when reading this commenter’s question was to feel somewhat hurt/indignant. But after a while, I ended up feeling quite grateful to the commenter as it gave me a chance to clarify an issue that I didn’t even know might cross some readers’ minds.
I seem to have rambled on a bit here… My point is, in the end, it really doesn’t matter what some choose to believe or disbelieve about castor oil. It only matters what I believe/experience/do/ultimately share with the world. I know my messages will go out to those who really need it. That to me is everything. And that is partly why I’ve decided to write this article. Hopefully, it will convince some people to open up their minds a little. Well, I can hope!
This article is quite different from my other ones. I’ve realised that while it’s one thing for me to TELL people about my experience with using castor oil, it’s quite something else when I can SHOW them. That’s right, I’m putting aside any self-consciousness I have and showing everyone my own before-and-after photos. Yeah!!! And here we go…
The story of how I healed my scar using castor oil
THE SHORT VERSION: I successfully healed a four-year old deep burn scar on my leg by using castor oil. Scroll down for photos galore. The end.
THE LONG VERSION: In 2007, I accidentally burned my leg on a very hot motorcycle exhaust pipe. Yes, I lead a very exciting life. 
The burn was on the inner calf of my right leg. My initial injury can be classified as a deep second-degree burn. After the wound scabbed and peeled over a couple of weeks, the scarred skin that emerged:
- was almost completely hairless
- much less sensitive to touch than the normal, healthy skin around it. These mean the burn was deep and severe enough to have “killed” most of the hair follicles as well as some nerve endings.
- had a complete and “permanent” change in color. This was mostly hyper-pigmentation (darkening) mixed with a bit of hypo-pigmentation (loss of color), which is common in deep burns. The pigment change was dermal (reached the lower dermis layer of the skin, as opposed to the upper epidermis only), deep enough that conventional lightening treatments such as hydroquinone could do nothing to change it.
- there was also a slight crescent-shaped depression close to the centre of the scar. I could feel the dip in my skin by touch alone.
Fast forward to October 2009, when I started using castor oil on my leg.
After 9 months (or by June 2010), the scar was almost gone. Amazingly, after this nine-month period:
- there was normal hair growth (I know the photos below don’t show the hair, but that’s only because I’ve shaved my legs. )
- my touch sensitivity returned, nerves I previously thought were dead and gone were revived back to life
- skin color/pigmentation returned to normal, blending in almost flawlessly with my surrounding skin. This was not something I expected at all since I have olive skin or Type IV skin
- the small depression had mostly filled in with healthy new tissue
In the most recent photo below (March 2011), you can still see a shadow of the scar on my calf. However, this was deliberate on my part — in August 2010, I decided to stop using castor oil on my leg. As strange as this may sound, I wanted a little bit of my scar to remain with me, because in my eyes, it had turned from a flaw into a reminder of my mind-opening journey.
You may read this article and imagine that the journey was a completely smooth, confident and happy one for me, but that isn’t the case at all. I had many ups and downs. During the first few months, I had many “downs”. There were days when I lost faith and thought about giving up. But as I discovered, all things change with time. So yes, I want to keep a little bit of my scar with me. It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve healed. Even now, everytime I look at it, I’d feel so very grateful for my healing and in awe of my body’s amazing transformation.
It truly makes me wonder what else is possible!
My method of using castor oil
How I used castor oil was easy — I kept it on my scar as much as I can. There were many days when I kept castor oil on my scar for almost 24 hours a day (excluding the breaks for showers).
During the day, I would massage castor oil into my scar. Sometimes I did this a few times a day. I learnt to carry a tiny travel bottle of castor oil with me to do this in the restroom at public places or at work.
At night, I would put a castor oil pack on my scar before going to bed. A castor oil pack is just a way to keep castor oil on the skin by wrapping it up. For my castor oil pack, I would slather the oil on my scar, cover it with cotton gauze, put more castor oil over that, and then wrap my calf up in cling film (plastic wrap) to keep it from staining my sheets. I then put on a long sock to make sure everything stayed on while I slept. I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I got it done very quickly, usually in less than a few minutes.
I used cotton gauze because it was cheap and disposable, but when I first started out, I was using cut cloth (basic unbleached cotton). Both are fine, but because castor oil will go rancid eventually, I’d need to wash/dry the cloth every few nights to keep it fresh. Eventually, I switched to cotton gauze that I bought at the pharmacy. Gauze was cheap, plentiful and disposable, so I didn’t need to wash it. It came in long strips so I cut them up into small squares for my use. If you decide to use cloth instead, here’s a tip: wash it out with baking soda. Baking soda gets castor oil out very well.
The brands of castor oil I used were Home Health and Heritage. However, this shouldn’t matter. Any brand that’s hexane-free and cold-pressed will do (the oil should ideally be cold-pressed because it retains more nutrients this way — the cold-pressed oil extraction method is much gentler than conventional methods; for example, it uses no heat). Anyway, I couldn’t tell any difference in the quality between the two brands I used. So don’t worry about brands so much, I made my own purchasing choices based on how large a bottle I could get for as low a price as possible, just because I go through a LOT of castor oil.
I used castor oil this way daily, but I also took breaks from it once in a while to let my skin rest. I found that my heavy usage of castor oil would sometimes “loosen” the skin on my scar, making it look a bit wrinkly. Kind of like the way skin would “prune up” when we stay in a bath too long. I wasn’t worried the first time I noticed this “loosening effect” because I somehow knew it was temporary. This probably happens because castor oil is a very good humectant and will put moisture into the skin. The breaks I took gave my skin a rest and then everything would tighten up again. This would be anywhere between a week to two weeks. I took as much time as my skin needed to tighten back up.
Just to be clear, this temporary loosening only happened because I was using castor oil very intensively on my scar (almost 24 hours/day and over many consecutive days). I’ve never gotten any such effect through normal usage of castor oil on other parts of my body or my face.
In the beginning, I worried that taking these breaks from my regimen would delay my healing. But when I saw that my scar was continuing to heal and progress regardless, I started to change my mind. I now believe these breaks were beneficial and possibly even crucial in healing my scar. I believe my skin was rebuilding itself more efficiently during the rest periods, while breaking down the scar tissue more actively during the “on” periods. But that’s just my personal opinion, I don’t exactly know how castor oil was able to do what it did for me, I only have my theories. (If you’re interested in finding out more on your own, google Edgar Cayce and castor oil. Edgar Cayce was a pioneer and advocate of castor oil use. )
Like I told a commenter (Matt), it’s a fairly intensive daily regimen, which was sometimes hard to keep up with. But then I started to see results… Slowly but surely, I saw my scar changing with my own eyes after a few months. This was the proof that kept me going when I would have otherwise given up.
How my scar changed
Everyone’s scars and skin injuries are different so it would make sense for us to heal differently. This is how my scar changed.
- The appearance of tiny light dots
I started seeing many tiny, light-ish dots in my hyperpigmented scar. They were so tiny at first that I could only see them by looking closely under the bright light of a torch. Then the tiny dots grew large enough that I could see them in normal lighting. These dots continued to expand and eventually started to join up wih each other. I got very excited at that. Eventually, I had small patches of healed, unblemished skin within my scar, which I spent many minutes staring at and touching…. I was simply amazed at them.
- Hair growth (important for regeneration!)
At the same time, I started seeing short and very fine, light-colored hairs appear on my scar. At first, these hairs were almost colourless, and looked “golden” under a light. Over time, they grew longer, thicker and darker, until they were looked no different from the hair on the rest of my legs. I noticed that my scar started to show faster improvement after normal hair growth returned.
This is probably because hair growth and follicles are important in cell regeneration. You may be surprised by this, but stem cells — which turn into our skin cells and nerve cells and everything else — originate from our hair follicles (these stem cells also aid skin regeneration after an injury—read ‘Hair follicle stem cells – the hairy truth‘). Knowing that my follicles were important in healing my scar, I made sure not to harm them by waxing since this would pull them from the root. And yes, I admit that I even avoided shaving my scar most of the time just to be safe. Although in theory, shaving should not do much harm, and what harm it causes is temporary at the most.
Basically, the changes in my scar came slowly and started out very small, but these little changes added up to a big one over nine months.
In fact, here’s another tip: if you’re trying to heal a scar with castor oil, take a good, clear photo of it now if you can. It would be useful for you to look at it and make comparisons after a few months just because it’s sometimes hard for us to see the changes in something that we look at everyday.
About the photos
It was awkward for me to take photos of my calf with my phone. The easiest way for me to take a good shot was to rest my right calf over my left thigh. I actually have tons of photos, these are only a few. What can I say… I’m a big geek and something of an amateur documenter. I’ve been journaling for many years now for my own nerdy pleasure. I never thought I would share these photos with anyone else, let alone publish them online for the whole world to see!
If you’re reading this and have a deep scar you wish to treat, I hope my photos and story give you some hope.
| Date | Photos | Details |
|---|---|---|
| May 2008 |  |
Taken with Sony Ericsson K770i Cybershot.Flash was OFF.
You can clearly see the crescent-shaped depression in the middle. |
| May 2008 |  |
Taken with Sony Ericsson K770i Cybershot.Flash was ON.
Compare with the photo above taken on the same occasion. The camera flash makes a big difference. |
| June 2010 |  |
Taken with Sony Ericsson Hazel (no timestamp feature available).Flash was OFF. |
| March 2011 |  |
Taken with Sony Ericsson Hazel (no timestamp feature available).Flash was OFF. |
| March 2011 |  |
Taken with Sony Ericsson Hazel (no timestamp feature available).Flash was ON. |
| March 2011 |  |
Another angle to give you some context. Taken with Sony Ericsson Hazel (no timestamp feature available).Flash was ON. |
Note: Thank you to the girl I saw at lunchtime today. She was walking ahead of me in a skirt and had the same burn scar I did, on the same place on her calf. I really, really wanted to ask her about it (motorcycle exhaust pipe, huh?). I wanted to roll up my pant leg, show her my calf and share with her what I did to heal it. But I didn’t. Eventhough I would have approached her with nothing but love and an enthusiastic desire to share/help, I thought there was a chance she would not have wanted my help in that setting (we were in a crowded place and she was not alone).
Afterwards, I wasn’t sure if I had made the right decision in not speaking to her. Sometimes, we fear too much and a golden moment in life might pass us by. I thought about how I could make things right somehow, and I came up with the idea of putting this article + some of my photos together. So this was all really inspired by her. Thank you!
Best of luck in healing your ovarian cyst.
I had a quarter sized wart removed from my scalp and there is no hair where the wart grew. Can castor oil return hair to this bald spot?
Yes, I think it’s possible. The depression in the skin (if any) will need to fill in first though.
I had a motorcycle burn from the exhaust pipe once. I put aloe on it and vitamin E, kept it covered then put vasoline on it daily for weeks, it went mostly away in about 3 months. It left a small brown scar, but I kept at it until it was gone. That was in the 80s, my sister-law got burned on the same motorcycle exhaust pipe and the same leg. I told her what to do, she didn’t listen and now to this day has a scar, mine is gone and it was big. I remember showing the nurse my scar 3 weeks after I got it. She went screaming out the room to get the doctor, gee I thought maybe I was going to die or something, but she was shocked at how well it healed in just weeks. Go figure.
Hi Sky, thanks so much for sharing that.
In the past, I’ve commented a few times that it may not be the type of oil that matters so much in fading scars, but persistent applications, so it’s great to get confirmation from someone else.
Hi I’m interested in your scar removal. Did you put all three, the aloe, vitamin e, and vaseline on at the same time? Or did you use the first two only and then later switched to just using the Vaseline? Thank you very much as I am depressed over old scars and need help removing them.
Hi!
I’m writing a book, and writing a section on scars. I know about castor oil (I’ve recommended it before for pelvic issues) but wanted more information on scars. This information is great! Could you contact me? … Would you mind if I used the information and pictures in the appendix of my book as an illustration on castor oil?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Hi Caroline, I’d be happy to help, but could you drop me an email at sam [at] skinverse [dot] com, so I can get a few more details? Thanks!
Hi I was wondering what would be an affective remedy to stretch marks? I’ve had them for 3 1/2 years now. Mostly on my stomach,butt area and the back of my legs. Also something to prevent new ones forming.
Thank you.
Hi Jasmin
This older reply might be helpful to you.
Thanks for the quick reply.
Hi! thanks for the article it was very interesting
I recently purchased some castor oil to help treat my acne. Now that I know it can heal scars, can it also fade my acne scars? I have a lot of dark-red-ish spots ALL OVER my face left over from past breakouts. I was wondering…if I massage the castor oil over the scars, will they fade as well? i’ve been applying castor oil all over my face for the past couple of months now but I’m not seeing much fading action 
Is there something I’m doing wrong? Thanks!!
Hi elena
You’re very welcome, and I’m really not sure how to answer your question.
Everyone’s scars and skin are different, so we would heal differently. Speaking of which, our bodies and rates of healing are also different. I generally have a very healthy diet (most of the time!), lifestyle, and outlook on life (you’d be surprised how much our mind and emotions play a part in our healing or non-healing)… and I’ve noticed that any cuts or bruises I get tend to heal really rapidly. This probably had a part to play in my scar healing then as well. Our skin grows from the inside out, so our overall physical, mental, and emotional health would matter greatly.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is the article only describes my own personal experience, so don’t worry if you’re not seeing the same exact changes at the same exact pace with castor oil on your acne scars. There might be changes that are unique to you.
And please don’t take offense at this—as I really don’t want to offend you in any way!—but generally speaking, acne is usually a symptom of something else going on. Our skin is an excretory organ, but our bodies only uses skin eruptions (eg acne) to expel toxins when our primary excretory organs (liver, bowels, kidneys, etc) aren’t able to work optimally or are hindered in some way. Of course, there could be other reasons for acne as well (like hormones and certain medication) and I totally don’t know your situation, but I thought this might be helpful to share as well.
wow, this is so interesting, for a while last year i was using castor oil for weightloss is was weird, i started rubbing it on my abdomen as people say it is good for detoxification and then i noticed that wherever i rubbed it, the area would feel slimmer and more supple. sometimes i rubbed it over my whole body, boy did it stink though. yuck
so i thought, this castor oil is like a miracle, and why haven’t i heard of it, i googled it and some good stuff came up but finding your site verifies for me that castor oil is a real healer as i had thought.
Thanks for sharing lizzy!
Hi there!
Your story is truly inspiring. I have a scar from my tattoo removal. Do you think castor oil can help with it? Also, it’s on my back so I believe that using castor oil packs will be easy for me. Would the healing process speed up if I only used a castor oil pack throughout the day and did not massage the oil into the skin with my bare hands? Also, would you suggest using heating pads? Did you use heating pads on your scar? Thank you so much. Your story was amazing. I hope this works for me.
You’re very welcome, and I don’t see why castor oil can’t help your scar as well. A castor oil pack should be sufficiently healing without an accompanying massage. Your skin will absorb it throughout the day, which is quite good and intensive as it is.
I didn’t use any heat when treating my scar. But if it’s convenient for you, applying external heat should help speed up healing as the oil can more deeply penetrate faster. It’ll also boost circulation, which is always good.
Best of luck, determinator!
Hi Thanks so much for sharing your story!! If you will permit – this is going to be long. but I am desperate for help.
I have an unusual skin disorder. I am extremely photosensitive to any type of light – indoor or sun. If I don’t have makeup on, my skin will start burining after about 1/2 hr. I can’t use sunscreen as it burns my face even more.
About 10 years ago, I was doing AHA acids to exfoliate. One weekend I had to work a 10 hour outdoor event in the hot sun for 2 days. I slathered on spf 50 thinking this would help – the next day my skin was pure leather, red, painful, like I had a chemical and sun burn really really bad. It healed okay, but from that point on, I have been super hypersensitive to any light source on my face.
A few weeks after the event above, I didn’t know my damage was so bad because my outward skin seemed to heal okay, so I waited a few weeks and started doing anti-aging type creams, some AHA, but not a whole lot, mainly Vitamin C serums, light exfoliators. It was okay for while and then about a year later, my skin would mysteriously start burning after about an hour in front of a computer monitor. Over the years, it included TVs, cell phones, anything that emitted light.
It got so bad, all I could use was vitamin e oil, but after a time, I couldn’t use that either. I coudl use nothing but pure mineral makeup to protect my skin.
Its like I had no barrier on my skin anymore but it looked liek normal skin.
So I didn’t moisturize for years only used mineral makeup. This was fine for a while until I got older and my skin started drying out big time. Mind you the mineral makeup only protects me for so long. My face still burns but not as bad as if I didn’t have it on.
Here’s my thought and question – looking at your photos what happened to your skin (a serious burn) probably meant that you lost your skin barrier as well. Was your leg extrememly photosensitive as well as seneitive to anything you put on it before the castor oil?
Did the castor oil in your opinion rebuild your skin tissue and your skin barrier that protects your skin tissue? I really need a solution as I can’t function now like a normal person because I’m always avoiding direct light.
My entire family and coworkers think I’m crazy because I have to sit so far from computer and TVs just to watch them as well as have them turned down to almost black. As a result I’m losing my eyesight now too.
I’ve been to several derms they haven’t helped much. I have used every type of natural oil out there. I can only use them at night as during the day if I have them on under my makeup even a light coat – my face will burn like crazy in the light. It’s soooooo weird and debilitating.
And I have really bad melasma patches on my cheeks now.
Please help!!!
Hi Marie,
I’m very sorry to hear about your condition. Right after my accident, the burned skin was extremely photosensitive. In fact, I didn’t protect it well enough in sunlight, which is probably why it got so deeply hyper-pigmented. But after my skin had hyperpigmented, it wasn’t photosensitive anymore. I think the injured area had all the melanin it needed to protect itself by then.
To answer your question, before I tried castor oil, I tried weak acids (lactic acid, which is supposed to be safer for olive skin tones) and hydroquinone (not at the same time). Eventhough they were supposed to be rather gentle, they stung and my skin didn’t like them. So I think you’re right in that my injury had made the skin there much more sensitive and vulnerable.
I’m positive castor oil has rebuilt my skin layers. The deeply-injured skin is completely normal, healthy and plump now, just like the rest of the skin on my calf.
I don’t know anything about your condition, but it sounds like you should avoid all chemicals. If store-bought sunscreen is no good, have you considered making your own by using pure zinc oxide and a natural base oil? This would be free of chemicals and preservatives. Normal zinc oxide (avoid the newer nano zinc oxide as this can irritate) will lead to some pasty whiteness, but if you’ll be using mineral makeup over, it shouldn’t matter.
I don’t like sunscreen myself either so I actually use the gentlest sunblock I could find — believe it or not, this turned out to be a baby diaper rash cream that uses natural ingredients. All I cared about was that it was mostly natural ingredients and contained 40% zinc oxide, which worked marvelously as a sunblock.
You might find this comment helpful as well – in it, I talked about my inner healing work and how it sped up my skin’s own healing. (At the time I was treating my scar with castor oil, I was also trying to heal my ovarian cysts. You can read this section on Getting Alkaline to know more about what I did then. I’m positive what I was doing then also played a part in my skin healing as well. Who knows, it might help you too? )
And here’s an article about melasma that might interest you.
I hope all these helps you a bit or at least gives you some ideas to go on.
Hello! I was wondering if castor oil will have as great of an impact on scars on individuals with African American skin? My scars appear somewhat hypertrophc in that the outside of the scar is extremely dark in comparison to my brown skin tone while the inside has a somewhat white/light brown pigment. Thank you so much for your story. You are amazing!
Hi mimi, you’re very welcome
And I don’t see why castor oil wouldn’t work on black skin as well. My dermal (deep) hyperpigmentation was also very dark compared to the rest of my skin.
I’ve also been rubbing castor oil on an ancient hypertrophic scar on my elbow for some time now, and it’s softened and flattened quite a bit.
Hi! I have this big keloid on my arm due to a surgery. Actually there was a small keloid at first left by a vaccine. Then I had it removed 15 years ago. Now the keloid is getting bigger, and the worse is it is itchy around the keloid area. I had bought castor oil already but haven’t applied it yet. Can it still be removed considering that the keloid is old and big? Thanks!
Hi Crescia, I think it can help with time and patience. You might also find this other article helpful as well (someone reported results on her keloid using castor oil) –> Keloid treatments and home remedies
Hello, i’ve had a keloid on my chest for the past 15yrs or so. I’ve tried all sorts to no avail. I started using castor oil about four months. At night, i would soak cotton wool in the oil and apply it on the keoid. It helps to subdue the pain but the keloid has not reduced. What am i doing wrong? Pls reply.
Hi ify, I don’t think you’re doing anything “wrong”. The fact that the pain is subdued is an excellent sign that it’s doing something to your keloid scar.
A scar can be a complicated thing, bundles of nerves wrapped and knotted in hard tissue. I’ve noticed that healing will usually happen in stages, and in reverse. The healing of irritated nerves might just the first step for you. I’ve got an ancient raised scar on my elbow (about 20 years old) which I’ve been treating with castor oil for many months now, and it’s transformed and literally changed shapes as it flattens and softens.
You might also get more help by posting here >> Keloid Treatments and Home Remedies