Once healed, a full thickness skin graft will look quite red at first, and then will begin to fade after a few months. In the end, the graft can sometimes look quite pale, and the texture and colour match may make the graft look like a ‘patch’ of skin.
The skin graft is a thin piece of skin, so it drapes inside a wound instead of filling it; the area can therefore have a ‘dented’ appearance. In a shallow wound though, a full thickness graft can sometimes match the depth of wound and so give a good contour match.
Over time, a full thickness skin graft can shrink (contract), making it look uneven and bumpy. Sometimes, this shrinkage can affect nearby areas such as eyelids, and further surgery to release this contracture might be needed. The chances of this are less than with a split skin graft though, which is why, for areas such as around the eyelids, a full thickness graft is usually used.