# Marks > Marks are the visible traces left by impact play: redness, bruising, welts and cane tramlines. How long they last varies enormously from person to person. - Canonical URL: https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/marks/ - Section: A–Z - Updated: November 2026 (2026-11-01) - Audience: consenting adults over 18 only. Everything on this site concerns consenting adults over 18. The part people worry about afterwards and forget to discuss beforehand. The timeline is fairly predictable once you know it, and there are about six signs that mean stop and get seen. --- ## In short - Redness fades in hours. Light bruising lasts three to five days. Cane tramlines can run past a fortnight. - Bruising usually looks worse on day two than on the night itself, so judging a session by how it looked at the time is unreliable. - How much someone marks says more about their skin and their medication than about how hard the session was. - Numbness, a hard lump that keeps growing, broken skin that will not close, or blood in urine mean medical help now. ## What it means Marks are what is left on the skin afterwards. In rough order of severity: redness, which is blood flow and goes within hours; blotchy purpling, which is bruising from broken capillaries; welts, which are raised ridges from a narrow implement; and tramlines, the distinctive cane mark of a pale central line with bruising to either side of it. Marking is not a score. Two people can take the same session and one will be pink by the end of the evening while the other is purple for ten days. Skin thickness, age, capillary fragility and medication all matter more than force does. ## In practice The thing to plan around is the delay. Deep bruising from broad implements frequently does not appear on the night, which is why people carry on happily at the time and are startled on Monday morning. If you are working to a constraint, such as a swim or a holiday, assume day two will be the worst and work backwards from that. Concealment is worth a conversation before rather than after. Who might see this, in what circumstances, and does that change what we do tonight. Getting changed at the gym, a physio appointment, a partner who does not know about any of this. That conversation takes two minutes and prevents the specific misery of somebody sitting in a changing room working out how to get their trousers on without turning round. On aftercare for marks: arnica has weak evidence and does no harm. Cold on the night reduces swelling, warmth after twenty-four hours helps the bruise disperse. The rest of the folk remedies do very little. The detail is on [marks and bruising](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/). ## Where the confusion comes from Treating marks as evidence of a good session. Some people love them and want them to last, which is entirely their business, but chasing marks changes how you swing and pushes towards narrow implements landing repeatedly in the same place. That is how skin splits. The other mistake is photographing without agreeing it first. A photograph of marks is an identifiable image of somebody's body taken at their most exposed. Ask before, agree where it lives, and delete it when asked, without discussion. > **Get medical help if.** There is numbness or tingling that does not resolve, a hard lump that keeps growing, skin that has split and will not close, blood in urine, pain over the kidney or spine rather than the buttocks, or bruising accompanied by feeling generally unwell. Go to a walk-in centre or A and E and say what happened plainly. UK medical staff have heard it before and are not there to judge you. ## Read next - [Marks and bruising](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/marks-and-bruising/) - [Impact play](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/glossary/impact-play/) - [Where it is safe to strike](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/where-it-is-safe-to-strike/) - [Aftercare](https://consensualspanking.co.uk/guide/aftercare/) ## Common questions ### Which spanking marks last longest? Redness from a hand spanking fades within a few hours. Light bruising usually shows within a day and clears in three to five. Heavier bruising from a paddle or a strap can take one to two weeks, and cane tramlines are the most persistent, sometimes visible for two weeks or more. Bruising often looks worse on the second day than it did on the night. ### Why do some people bruise so much more than others? Skin thickness, capillary fragility, age, and medication are the main factors. Anticoagulants, aspirin and some anti-inflammatories increase bruising considerably, and so do a few medical conditions. It is not a measure of how hard the session was, and two people can take an identical spanking and look completely different afterwards.