Why are so many women attempting complicated skin procedures at home? Courtney Dunlop asks the experts what’s safe to DIY and what’s best left to the professionals
Take a scroll through Instagram or YouTube and you might think there’s nothing skin related you can’t do at home—dermaplaning, micro needling, chemical peels, removing all sorts of perceived skin imperfections—and there are plenty of tutorials and professional grade tools to help you do it. But just because you can, does that mean you should?
A few months ago, after watching a video of a dermatologist extracting impacted blackheads from a patient’s face, I decided to tackle a tiny bump on the side of my cheek with a safety pin. Friends, it did not go well. There was blood. There were tears. The wound I created took weeks to heal, and I still have the scar to show for it. As a beauty writer and founder of skincare shop @goodskinday.co, I should have known better. But these days, no one is immune to the siren song of DIY dermatology.
“As a doctor, I’ll tell you not to pop your pimples since it can cause infection and scarring,” says southern California dermatologist Sandra Lee, whose wildly popular Dr. Pimple Popper YouTube channel and Instagram feed may be partially responsible for the uptick in armchair aestheticians, “but I think many people can’t resist.” Read on for a guide to treatments that you can try at home versus those best left to the pros.
MICRONEEDLING
This story is from the September 2018 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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This story is from the September 2018 edition of Marie Claire - US.
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