Sounds like a form of torture – and it is!
HAVING needles rolled across your face sounds like a brutal form of torture - and when I tried the anti-ageing treatment, that’s exactly what it felt like.
But, as with so many things in beauty: no pain, no gain. As a beauty journalist, I once tried micro-needling. The doctor wielded his Dermaroller – a roller covered with ultra-fine mm stainless steel spikes – with authority and a heavy hand.
He pushed it back and forth across my cheeks and forehead and – ouch – across the bridge of the nose. Even though I had been smothered beforehand with numbing cream, I soon felt I couldn’t take any more, and was screaming in pain.
So why on earth would any sane person want to do this? Because a few weeks later, my then 44-year-old skin was plumper, fresher and younger looking than it had been in years. Micro-needling is one of the only ways to make skin look younger and less wrinkled without resorting to Botox, injectable fillers or lasers.
‘Medical needling is a wonderful, completely natural anti-ageing treatment that helps the skin to help itself,’ says Dr Stefanie Williams, of the Eudelo dermatology clinic in London. Doctors use needles anywhere between 0.5mm and mm long, depending on the results they are aiming for.
Glynis Barber has had the latest version of the treatment, using needles which are less than 1mm long – which really doesn’t hurt because the nerves in the skin lie 1.5mm below the surface. There are even home versions known as ‘dermapens’, which cost between £50 and £100, and have much shorter needles.
Even better news for the squeamish is another treatment called Radara, with spiked stick-on patches. Spikes are so short – 0.5mm – they only feel like bristles.
Yet used with an anti-wrinkle serum, they claim to reduce crow’s feet by more than a third in a month – an easier way to explore the trend without going through the pain barrier.