By: Casey Davidson

There is nothing tackier than the post Valentine’s Day hook-up badge, aka the hickey. Even though almost everyone has gotten one before, having an inflamed scarlet patch of skin on your neck makes you feel like a complete tramp. So before you cower under a giant scarf, or badly cover up your red patches with some cheap make-up you bought from Wal-mart; take a deep breath and keep reading for some tips and tricks to eliminating your embarrassing hickeys.

Before proceeding with the treatments assess the state of your hickey. Depending on the length of time you have had the hickey, certain methods are better than others. If you hickey is newly formed then you should use cold methods of treatment, if you have an aged hickey (48 hours) use hot treatments.

Cold treatments:

• Frozen spoon method: Take a few spoons and place them in the freezer. Once all the spoons have gotten cold, place a cloth or a paper towel on top of the spot you are treating and firmly press the curved underside of the spoon where you have your hickey, slowly rubbing it around the area. When you find that your spoon has gotten warm, simply grab another frozen spoon out of the freezer and repeat the same process.

• Ice cube method: Take an ice cube and place it in a cloth or ziplock bag. With this you will then want to rub the smooth side of the ice cube on the hickey just like the frozen spoon method.

Hot treatment:

• Warm washcloth method: Take a washcloth and soak it in hot water. Take two fingers and wrap them in the washcloth and use your fingers to massage your hickey.

Random treatments:

• Coin method: Find a coin, it doesn’t matter what kind. With one hand stretch your skin around you hickey and with the other hand take the coin and use its edge to scratch the hickey. This is one of the more painful methods, but it can be the most effective. One thing before you decide to choose this method be careful not to make the hickey worse. If you scratch too hard or if you overly irritate the area the hickey could double in size. Before trying this method try one of the hot or cold treatments.

• Eraser method: Take a small pencil eraser and place it any where on your hickey. Next begin to twist the eraser left and right moving it all around the hickey. Again, this method could possibly make the hickey worse, so be careful not to overly irritate the area.

For your sake I hope these tips help you to keep it classy this Valentine’s Day. Have fun and remember to keep some extra spoons in your freezer!