The simplest way to tell if you have acne scars is to run your finger across the area where a breakout healed. If you feel a change in texture, either a dip or a raised bump, that’s a scar. If the mark is flat and smooth but just a different color than the surrounding skin, that’s not a scar. It’s a temporary discoloration that will fade on its own. This distinction matters because scars and dark marks have very different timelines and treatment paths.
Scars vs. Dark Marks: The Texture Test
Most people who think they have acne scars actually have post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, which is a flat discoloration left behind after a pimple heals. These marks can be red, purple, pink, brown, or nearly black depending on your skin tone. They’re caused by excess melanin production in the outer layers of skin, and while they can linger for months, they’re not permanent. They fade gradually, and treatments like sunscreen, vitamin C, and certain exfoliants can speed that process along.
True acne scars involve structural changes beneath the surface. They form when the skin either produces too little collagen to properly repair the damage from an inflamed breakout (creating a depression) or produces too much collagen (creating a raised bump). The key distinction is physical: scars change the texture of your skin, while dark marks only change the color. If you’re unsure, press gently on the area. A flat mark that blends into the surrounding skin when stretched is likely hyperpigmentation. A visible indent or bump that stays no matter how you move the skin is a scar.
Types of Depressed Scars
The majority of acne scars are depressed, meaning the skin dips inward. These are called atrophic scars, and they come in three distinct shapes. Recognizing which type you have helps clarify what you’re dealing with and what options exist for improving them.
Ice Pick Scars
These are the most common type, making up 60 to 70 percent of all atrophic acne scars. They look like tiny, deep punctures in the skin, as if someone poked the surface with a needle or thin sharp object. They’re narrow at the top and taper deeper into the skin, which makes them especially noticeable in certain lighting. Ice pick scars most often appear on the forehead and upper cheeks, where the skin is thinner.
Boxcar Scars
Boxcar scars are wider depressions with sharp, well-defined edges. They look like small craters or rectangular indentations, almost like a chickenpox mark. They’re wider than they are deep, which distinguishes them from ice pick scars. You’ll typically find them on the lower cheeks and along the jawline. They account for roughly 20 to 30 percent of atrophic scars.
Rolling Scars
Rolling scars create a wave-like, uneven texture across the skin’s surface. Instead of sharp edges, they have soft, sloping borders that blend into surrounding skin, giving the area an undulating or rippled look. These are broad and shallow, and they’re most visible when light hits the face at an angle. Like boxcar scars, they tend to show up on the lower cheeks and jaw where the skin is thicker. They represent about 15 to 25 percent of atrophic scars.
Many people have a combination of all three types, which is completely normal. Severe or prolonged breakouts in the same area tend to produce a mix.
Types of Raised Scars
Not all acne scars are indented. Some heal with excess collagen, creating tissue that sits above the skin’s surface. There are two types, and they behave differently.
Hypertrophic scars are firm, raised bumps that stay within the boundaries of the original breakout. They’re essentially an overreaction during healing, where the body deposits too much collagen in one spot. These can soften and flatten somewhat over time, though they rarely disappear entirely without treatment.
Keloid scars are a more aggressive version. They grow beyond the edges of the original pimple or wound, sometimes expanding significantly into surrounding healthy skin. Keloids are firm, smooth, and hard, and they can be itchy, tender, or painful. Some people are genetically more prone to keloids than others. Both hypertrophic and keloid scars are most common on the chest, back, shoulders, and jawline.
What Makes Scarring More Likely
Not every breakout leaves a scar. Scarring is most closely tied to the severity and duration of inflammation. Deep, painful cysts and nodules that sit under the skin for days or weeks are far more likely to cause permanent damage than a surface-level whitehead. The longer a breakout stays inflamed, the more collagen disruption occurs during healing.
Picking, squeezing, or popping pimples significantly increases scarring risk. When you break the skin manually, you push bacteria and debris deeper into the tissue, extend the inflammatory response, and create additional damage the skin has to repair. Even scratching at a healing blemish can interfere with collagen production enough to leave a mark.
Genetics play a role too. Some people’s skin simply produces collagen less efficiently during wound repair, making depressed scars more likely. Others overproduce collagen, leading to raised scars. If your parents scarred easily from acne, you’re more likely to as well.
How to Assess Your Skin at Home
Good lighting is the most useful tool for identifying acne scars. Stand near a window with natural sidelight hitting your face at an angle. Depressed scars become much more visible when light rakes across the skin because the shadows inside the indentations become pronounced. In flat, front-facing light, the same scars can be nearly invisible.
Touch each area you’re concerned about. Smooth, flat discoloration is hyperpigmentation. A small, sharp hole is likely an ice pick scar. A wider crater with defined edges is a boxcar scar. A broad, shallow wave you can mostly feel rather than see is a rolling scar. A firm bump that doesn’t flatten when you press it is a raised scar.
Pay attention to where your marks are located. Depressed scars on the forehead and upper cheeks tend to be ice pick type. Texture changes on the lower cheeks and jaw are more often boxcar or rolling scars. Raised, firm tissue on the chest, back, or shoulders points to hypertrophic or keloid scarring.
When Marks Are Still Changing
If your acne is still active or only recently cleared, it’s too early to assess scarring. Fresh post-inflammatory marks, whether red, pink, or brown, can take anywhere from three to twelve months to fade. What looks like a permanent scar at the two-week mark is often just a healing mark that needs more time. The texture test remains your most reliable indicator during this phase: if the spot is flat and smooth, give it time before assuming the worst.
True scars, once fully formed, do not resolve on their own. Depressed scars in particular are permanent without intervention because the collagen structure beneath the skin has been fundamentally altered. If you still see textural changes six months or more after your last breakout in that area, those are established scars.