Hello, I have a character that has scars on the left side of his face from severe burns, the right side of his face is fairly unaltered. Since I'm not a doctor, and I don't personally know anyone who has severe burns. I'm not sure if scar tissue maintains the surface-level blood vessels for a blush.... My question is this... If my character blushed, would it only appear on the side of his face without scars? THANKS
I have only known one person who had severe burn scars on his face, but he definitely could still blush. I'm not sure if that is true for all, but it was for him.
It depends on the burn. There's what's known as full thickness and partial thickness burns. On partial thickness burns, like the name implies, only burn the first two layers of the skin. They can look bad, feel bad, and the deeper partial thickness burs can scar fairly bad as well. Full thickness burns completely burn through all layers of skin, nerves, blood vessels, sweat glands, all of it. As a general rule, I'd say partial burn victims probably wouldn't have a problem. Full burn victims, however, probably wouldn't considering they wouldn't have working nerves, proper capillaries or the muscles in the scar tissue that allow for traditional blushing. I'm sure the area could redden in some way under some circumstances, but not exactly blushing how we think of blushing.
Dapper Hooligan... This character has lost eyebrows and has smooth scars for over 15 months, some skin graphs etc.
You're welcome. In response to the detail you provided to Dapper - the guy I knew was in a house fire (as a kid - I'm not sure when), he was missing an ear, his entire face was involved, neck, arms, etc. He did still have some hair. And he could blush - quite clearly. He was a teenager when I knew him, and I have no idea if the age the burns were acquired makes a difference, but I thought I'd be more clear about his condition in case it helps
There are also two different types of skin grafts, also known as partial thickness and full thickness grafts. With partial thickness grafts, they plane off the top layers of skin from the donator site and apply that to the injured area. these grafts tend to leave smooth, shiny scars that on full thickness burns, leave the area free of hair, sweat glands, and oil glands. Full thickness skin grafts are, as the name implies, are all layers of skin cut from another area of the body (usually the groin or buttock) and grafted to the burn site. There is some scarring with full thickness grafts, but it acts like normal skin, though there may be some miscolouration. Full thickness skin grafts are generally used on facial burns and injuries because of the cosmetic factor, and partial thickness grafts are generally used to cover larger burn areas to help them heal faster. All scars, from burns or otherwise, go through four healing phases. The last, the maturation phase, can take anywhere from one to three years, but is usually done around year two, and usually the younger a patient is, the longer it takes for the scar to mature and the more likely they'll develop abnormal scarring. Luckily, because there is such a variation in injuries and healing, you could probably have your character blush, or not depending, and be able to legitimately back your decision. I'm curious as to how exactly you know this, but I'm going to pretend I'm too much of a gentleman ask.