Can you poke, prod, squeeze and inject your way to radiant skin? Erin Cook investigates
‘I’M GOING TO DO the most painful area first,’ my aesthetician Ashlee said as she lowered a hi-tech needling device towards my forehead. In the split second that followed, I questioned every decision that led up to that moment. I was about to undergo a micro-needling treatment, a facial therapy that promises to make skin noticeably smoother, plump and more radiant in a matter of days. The only catch? It requires sitting still for 10-15 minutes while thousands of tiny needles puncture into your face.
Micro-needling is just one of a handful of extreme facials gaining popularity among millennial women. Vampire facials (more on that later), chemical peels and extractions are also becoming cheaper and less time-consuming. But just because you can afford to pop out for a lunchtime extraction, does that mean you should? I’ve weighed up the pros and cons – and I have the puncture marks to prove it.
Micro-needling
Over the past year, micro-needling has gone from an obscure procedure to a must-do for anyone with acne scarring, pigmentation or rosacea. Skinstitut’s resident skin expert Zoe Devine says it’s all because of social media: ‘Everyone’s talking about it so much more,’ she says. ‘I think in the past everybody was a little bit scared of it.’
Micro-needling – also known as derma-rolling and skin-needling – claims to spur collagen production by creating tiny micro-injuries on the surface of the skin. ‘You create a controlled amount of trauma which ignites the skin’s natural wound healing response,’ Devine says, ‘which releases growth factors to restructure the skin, remodel scar tissue and produce healthy collagen’. It also makes your skincare more effective as the needles literally push the product into your skin.
This story is from the December 2018 edition of Cosmopolitan Australia.
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This story is from the December 2018 edition of Cosmopolitan Australia.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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