What IS a Hickey? How to Get, Give, and Get Rid of Them

Ever found an angry, purple mark on your neck after a particularly enthusiastic makeout session? We've all been there, left to wonder one thing: what is a hickey, anyway? How long do hickeys last? And how do you get rid of them, fast? Or maybe in this moment, you’re less concerned with covering yours up and a bit more curious about how to give a hickey in turn. Either way, we’ve got you covered.

The truth is, hickeys, or “love bites,” are really no big deal. There’s never any reason to shame someone for having one — like all forms of consensual sexual behavior, you don't have to justify someone making out with your neck! But the paradox of the hickey is that it takes something private and creates a public, lingering effect. Nothing feels more right in the moment, but walking through the next few days with a makeout mark visibly on your body can also feel a little surreal. It’s like your private life has made a sudden stage entrance; “I was once a part of an act of passion,” your neck screams, “and now I’m just in math class.”

Feelings of ride, euphoria, anxiety, and acceptance: they're all par for the course with hickeys. Sometimes, getting one will feel hot, and other times, it’ll just feel like a nuisance. (The latter is especially likely if you come to the family dinner table sporting hickeys and your father, seeing the damage, earnestly blurts out: “Did you fall on your neck?!” Not speaking from experience here.)

Whether your goal is to get a handle on hickeys so you can avoid them, enjoy them, or know how to give them, it’s all valid. As a hickey-giver, just don’t skip the most important step: making sure the person you’re kissing is onboard before you leave them a neck souvenir. From there, we’ve got everything else covered: what’s happening under the skin when you get a love bite, how to get rid of a hickey (or, for an even faster fix, how to cover it up), and a step-by-step guide to giving the best hickey possible.

In this article, you’ll find:

• What Are Hickeys Anyway?
• How Long Do Hickeys Last?
• How to Give Someone a Hickey
• How to Get Rid of a Hickey, Fast
• What Makeup Covers a Hickey?

Hickeys are basically just broken blood vessels caused by someone sucking your skin, which results in a bruise. Though a bit of biting or hard kissing could contribute to getting a hickey, sucking is generally the culprit here, since it’s more likely to burst your skin’s tiny capillaries. Hickeys are also more likely to occur on softer, more sensitive skin like the neck, shoulders, and chest, though you can technically get a hickey anywhere.

What does a hickey look like, you ask? It depends a little on your skin tone. Right after you get one, it’s common for hickeys to look dark reddish before slowly morphing into shades of blue, purple, dark brown, or black, depending on your complexion. On lighter skin, yellow-ish green hues are common as the hickey nears the end of its healing process, while on medium and darker skin, the final stages of a hickey fading may look a bit subtler. For all skin tones, though, a hickey begins as darker than the surrounding skin and fades over time as your body breaks down the hemoglobin from leaked blood vessels and reabsorbs the pigments.

As far as size goes, it probably isn’t a surprise that most hickeys are mouth-sized and shaped. Meaning? They’re ovular, and they aren’t necessarily all that large. Sometimes, you might get more than one hickey at a time, though. That can give you the appearance of having a larger hickey on the neck, since your love bites are likely to be clustered together.

It doesn’t take long to get a hickey — 20 to 30 seconds of targeted sucking can do the trick — and they often appear quickly, too. You might be surprised to emerge from a makeout session to the sight of a visible hickey as soon as five to 10 minutes later! The longer and harder someone sucks, the darker and more intense the bruising, so be forewarned.

The neck may be a popular zone, but it’s not the only part of the body susceptible to love bites. In general, hickeys are most common in areas where skin is thinner and there’s lots of small blood vessels close to the skin’s surface, which is what causes a hickey to appear in the first place. Meaning, to give someone a hickey on, say, a forearm or quad would be tougher than the neck or inner part of the elbow!

While less typical, some people do notice love bites on places like the chest, thighs, or even their stomach — but these usually take more suction or pressure to develop. Wherever they show up, the same healing process applies, and knowing what to do to get rid of a hickey can help it fade more quickly. We’ll cover that in a bit!

If you’re someone who has lower levels of iron (formally referred to as an iron deficiency), your skin will bruise easier. This means it won't take as much suction to leave a mark. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask!), it also means that a hickey will show up darker and stick around longer. This can be the same case for people with thin or sensitive skin. In these cases, the blood vessels usually live closer to the top of the skin and react quicker to irritation.

Here’s a common question: Do hickeys hurt? Well, getting one doesn’t feel like nothing, but you’re more likely to feel mild discomfort and some tenderness. In the moment, the sensation leans more toward feeling pressure over pain, but because everyone’s pain tolerance is different, some people may find getting a hickey uncomfortable.

One thing to consider if you’re experimenting with this for the first time: Come up with a safe word or an easy way for you to communicate with your partner (and vice versa) should anyone stop enjoying the makeout session. If you’re feeling sensations you aren’t enjoying, regardless of whether they “qualify” as painful, it’s your right to stop!

…but there’s a reason hickeys tend to be associated with younger people! The neck, the shoulders, and the chest are seriously sensitive to touch, meaning that being kissed there feels pretty incredible. When you’re newer to kissing and still fine-tuning how to give the Perfect Neck Kiss™, you’re more likely to be a little aggressive with your mouth, which is why hickeys often do show up more on younger or newer kissers.

With some practice and the right partners, it’s possible your kissing might ease into a less hickey-centric mode. Or, conversely, you might be someone who really appreciates a good necking and plans to make getting and giving hickeys a longterm art form! Both scenarios are totally cool, and (safely, consensually) trying new things to figure out what you like is always a good idea.

There’s surprisingly little research done on hickeys, but the general consensus is that they rarely last longer than two weeks, with many hickeys clearing up within just a few days. How long the mark stays on a person is up to the types of hickeys at play (read: the harshness level of the suction involved) and the health of the person affected. The more intense the hickey, the longer it tends to stick around, while the healthier the person is (think: well-hydrated, good circulation, enough iron), the shorter the hickey’s time on earth.

Ultimately, hickeys are just bruises, so if you have one, it’s probably going to be gone in a few days. Try not to stress about it if you're feeling worried! Likewise, if you’ve given someone a hickey they wanted (more on that soon), as long as you’re both committed to keeping the situation as respectful as possible, it’s all good.

Giving someone a hickey is, really, pretty simple:

1. After first asking if your makeout partner is comfortable with receiving a souvenir mark — particularly a visible one — warm up their neck or the intended site of the hickey with some long kisses.
2. Then, put your lips against their skin and form an “O” with your mouth. Draw in your breath and suck; it should create a bit of a vacuum effect.
3. Teeth aren’t needed to cause a hickey — suction alone will do it — but you can mix in a bit of light biting and nibbling here if your partner is interested in that.
4. After about 20 to 30 seconds of uninterrupted suction, you’re likely to have visible hickey results within the next few minutes.

What if your partner is down to receive a hickey but would prefer it wasn’t in a super visible location? As mentioned earlier, thinner sections of skin are the best candidates — meaning other hickey site contenders could include around the collarbone, on the inner thigh, on the stomach, or even the skin in the crook of your elbow. The back of the neck may involve less cover-up work, too, for people with longer hair.

Some people call the act of giving a hickey as “marking” a partner. This is a term used in various BDSM and kink communities — it’s a good thing to be aware of and an even better conversation topic for you and your partner. And don’t be intimidated by the conversation. What are your goals with giving or receiving hickeys? Does the idea of possession come into play and how does that make all parties involved feel?

Things like this are way more fun when you’re both super into it. Make sure and talk about the elements that make you feel anxious or nervous and go slow. Have a safe word, if needed, so you can pause if things get too intense for anyone.

125 This or That Questions for Couples That Really Go There

Cue the curiosity!

Here’s the bad news. You can’t “get rid” of a hickey, as there’s no actual cure for them. But if you’re in a rush to have this thing gone — especially if you have something memorable, like picture day or a huge presentation, coming up — there are a few things you can do to speed up the healing process. Find tips for what to put on a hickey to help heal it below, as well as the best ways to cover a hickey up.

As soon as you get a hickey, you can start applying lotion with aloe vera and vitamin E to the bruise. This will help the broken capillaries heal a bit faster, and anti-inflammatory aloe vera can assist with swelling, too. Creams containing Vitamin C may also help get you over the hickey healing finish line faster — just be sure to have balanced expectations going into this. No topical solution will zap a hickey overnight, but they can help with the overall healing process.

You can put an ice pack (wrapped in a paper towel) on the hickey the first day. A packet of frozen peas is also great for this, and a cold spoon that you’ve stuck in the freezer could work in a pinch, too. (Freezer spoons are also an age-old hack for undereye circles!)

No matter what you’re using as your cold compress, you’ll want to place it directly on your hickey before slowly moving it around the neighboring skin. Do this for about 10 minutes, give your hickey a break of the same length, then reapply the cold compress. You can do this throughout the day, to slow blood flow to the area, and moving the compress will help to break up coagulated blood, too.

If you’ve had the hickey for two days, it’s time to try a warm compress. Applying heat to the hickey will cause blood flow to increase, which at this point can actually help. (Note: if it’s before 48 hours, don’t do this — it could actually make the hickey bigger if you do it early on when the blood vessels are still healing.) Something as simple as a towel soaked in hot (but not scaldingly hot!) water works well as a compress, or you can try using a hot water bottle. Even the heating pad you use during that time of the month can help here!

Other than applying heat or ice, try to leave the hickey alone. Never scrape, overly massage, or otherwise prod and poke at your hickey, especially in the early days of its first appearance. At the very least, it’ll just irritate the spot further and increase the hickey’s lifetime, but it can also be seriously damaging and even lead to scarring.

Peppermint oil can help stimulate blood flow to the hickey area. It's best to drop a couple of drops of diluted essential oil into a carrier oil like coconut or olive oil. Before going all in, test a tiny bit of the oil to the inside of your forearm. This is called skin patch testing and it can help you determine whether or not the oil will irritate your skin. Want to take it one step further? Ask your partner to massive the oil into the spot of focus.

Speaking of massage, after the first 48 hours, when the bruise is no longer fresh, gentle massage can help disperse the clotted blood under the skin. Use clean fingers (or if you’re feeling fancy, a jade roller) to softly massage around the edges of the hickey (never directly on top at first). This can gradually fade the discoloration. Remember: timing is everything. Too early, and you’ll risk making things worse; but after two days, it can actually help the mark heal faster!

Arnica is a part of the sunflower family, and topical and oral extractions of the herbaceous plant can help speed up the bruise's healing process. These types of treatments are widely available in most pharmacies.

While most hickeys show up on the neck, sometimes they appear on the chest or even the arm. If your hickey happens to be in a spot where you can elevate it (like lying down with a pillow under your upper back or keeping your arm propped up), you can help reduce blood pooling and swelling. Gravity might not erase the hickey, but it can help prevent it from looking darker and more pronounced.

We’re pretty sure turtlenecks shouldn’t actually be seen as a last resort here, given they’re kind of a fashion statement as well as a guaranteed solution for hiding hickeys. (And if you’ve been hickey-ed in the warmer months, there are always sleeveless turtlenecks!) Other potential fashion ideas? Think: a chunky necklace, a strategically placed bandana, or a collared shirt. And if accessorizing isn’t enough — or if you’d rather go subtler over making a statement — the next best fix is makeup. Ahead, we’ll walk you through how to conceal a hickey with color-corrector and concealer so no one’s the wiser.

Sometimes, no matter how many ice cubes, spoon tricks, or fashion trends that you try, that love bite just won’t fade fast enough. That’s when makeup can come to the rescue. If you’re wondering what makeup covers up a hickey, don’t worry — with the right products and a little technique, you can minimize the mark until it’s barely noticeable. Below, we break down seven tried-and-true ways to hide a hickey using makeup:

Before reaching for your concealer, wash and moisturize the area. Remember, hickeys are bruises, so the skin around them can be a little tender. A gentle cleanser followed by a lightweight moisturizer or primer will prep your skin and help makeup glide on smoothly. This step is especially important if you’re going to be layering products, because dry or flaky skin makes coverage patchy.

Here’s where knowing what color covers hickeys really comes in handy. As we mentioned earlier, bruises can go through color stages — red, purple, blue, even yellow — and color correcting neutralizes them:

• For purple or blue hickeys, use a peach or orange corrector.
• For red marks, try a green corrector.
• For yellowish fading hickeys, use a lavender corrector.

Apply the corrector lightly with your finger or a small brush. Don’t worry if it looks weird at first — concealer goes on top to even everything out.

Once you’ve corrected, grab a creamy, full-coverage concealer that matches your skin tone. A lot of people ask what makeup covers a hickey best, and the answer is: concealer that doesn’t budge. Dab, don’t rub, the concealer on top of the corrected spot before blending out the edges with a sponge or fingertip, so it looks seamless with the rest of your skin.

Pro tip: A liquid concealer with a matte finish tends to stay put longer than something dewy.

To avoid a patchy look, go over the concealed area with your regular foundation. Choose one with medium-to-full coverage, and don’t forget to apply lightly — too much product will cake and draw attention instead of blending the hickey away! If you’re using powder foundation, press it gently into the skin with a brush or sponge.

This step not only hides the discoloration but also ensures the coverage looks like part of your face or neck, and not a random, ill-placed makeup spot.

After all that careful blending, don’t let your hard work smudge off onto your clothes. A translucent setting powder will lock the concealer and foundation in place. Press (don’t swipe) the powder over the area using a fluffy brush or powder puff. If you’re headed out for the whole day, toss the powder and a mini brush in your bag for quick touch-ups!

If the hickey is still peeking through, use distraction to your advantage. A little bronzer around your collarbone or a touch of highlighter elsewhere can draw the eye away. This doesn’t mean piling shimmer directly on top of the bruise (that can make it stand out more) but enhancing nearby areas so people notice your glow instead.

Although we totally get the frantic feeling of needing to figure out how to get rid of a hickey, as one last reminder: if you can’t totally cover up the offending bruise, that’s okay! Hickeys that are consensually gotten and given aren’t something you need to be embarrassed of; they can even be a hot reminder of a moment of fun you had. And don’t we deserve some fun moments in this life?