What do you use to lighten/lessen your scars?

I am three weeks post op and the "glue" has just come off of my incisions.  They look pretty good but I am wondering what if anything you put on your scars to lessen the redness or lighten them? 

First get an OK from your doctor to start treating the scar.  I waited six weeks. 

Use Mederma cream.  The secrets are that you have to use it every single day and that it will take months for the scars to fade. 

Mederma has an app for iPhone that will remind you to use the cream and also allow you to take pictures of your daily progress and then view in a time lapse video.

I never did anything to the scars, and you couldn't find them now with a magnifying glass.

I bet I could find them!  I found the scar that Nick forgot he even had!  

Hmmmm....I will refrain from asking.... even though I REALLY want to know!

I'm guessing it was where an ex "cut him a new one."

Challenge accepted.

You'd never see my lobotomy scar. Too much hair grown over it.

I used cocoa butter on the scars after they healed, but I tend to scar so can still see them 1 year later.  This is typical for me though, as I my scars have always remained visible.  I kind of look like Frankenstein, as I have a vertical scar on each knee from knee replacement surgery too!  I consider them battle scars! 

I used Mederma for a few months, then decided it wasn't really doing anything. Now, at 8 mos out, I'm STARTING to see an improvement in the bigger incisions, tho the smaller ones are about gone!  I think it's just TIME that fades them, really. 

I did a little experiment when I had my panniculectomy (and had a huge incision from hip to hip.  I bought some Mederma, some Bio Oil, some of those silicone strips, and then just used my regular moisturizer (whatever average-priced one I was using at the time).  I used each as directed on 1/4 of the incision.  After about 2 months, there was no significant differnece between any of the four areas!  If I was forced to pick one section that looked better than the others, I would have picked the one that I just used the plain moisturizer on! the one I would have selected at the worst was the one I used the Bio Oil on.

Yes, this is anecdotal, but it matches what my plastic surgeon told me: that as long as you keep the skin moisturized the incision will heal to a nice thin white line all on its own without wasting money on anything (and the Mederma -- and especially the silicone strips!) aren't cheap.

Keep in mind, too, that many people who "swear" that these things helped their incisions have no idea what their incision lines would have looked like without the product!  So they ahev no idea whether they helped or not!  That is why I did my little experiment the way I did... So I would know how the one section looked without any fancy treatment.

Besides, if you have lap surgery, those spots are soooo small... nothing like an 8-in*****ision from open surgery or the 30+ incision from the panniculectomy (and those are both now just very thin white lines)

Lora