hey everyone, im going to make this short and fast, so i started getting mild acne at 19 y/o and didnt know how to really treat it because the face cleaners didnt do anything so i started using retin a .5 for a week then switched to 1% and been using it for like 5 months everyday, and I used it wrong , now that i found out, ive been using like a pearl size every day, not a pea size, because i have this problem that i think i didnt use enough and it didnt cover the problem areas sooo yeah stupid me, and at the moment my left cheek has like 3 to 4 little indented scars but there red and look irritated, basically my left cheek looks discolored , not a even tone, so i stopped using retin a for over a month now and all i do is gently apply jojoba and rosehip oil like 3 drops each on my face in the morning and at night i put a yogurt mask for 30min then jojoba and rosehip...thats it, but after a month my skin looks EXACTLY the same , IM SO CONFUSED, please someone help me understand what happened and what i should do, i feel like i damaged my skin horribly with retin a because i misused it.
It sounds like very typical hyperpigmentation (this probably would have happened whether you used retin-a or not). Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do to make it heal faster. It may take a few more months (typically 6 months or more to heal completely). I would continue to use very simple moisturizers, and make sure to WEAR SUNSCREEN. A non-comodgenic moisturizer with spf 15+ is good, and stay out of the sun as much as possible.