Does Dermarolling really work?

Hold on to your best Borat "wow wow wee wa's" because I'm going to give you my month long dermarolling experiment in detail. Here is me and what I would love to look like without layers and layers of makeup. The below image is a product of excellent makeup and 100 selfies to try and find the right angle to hide my biggest cystic spots, and is essentially, a big fat lie.

I was 18 when my skin was unceremoniously wrecked by cystic acne, and I do mean wrecked. I had always thought that surviving puberty without a single pimple meant that the spot monster had simply passed me by, but alas this was not the case. As soon as I gulped down my first birth control pill my hormones went haywire, starting a decade long battle with the pimples big asshole brother, cystic acne.

Now I cant be the only acne sufferer annoyed by commercials with one teeny tiny pimple and scar on a beautiful women who claims she simply wont leave the house until its gone, so I'm going to do something I've never done, which is put my skin on the internet for the world to see, because I want to show other sufferers that there is a light when your skin calms enough to treat it.

I want to preface this by saying that before you even think about dermarolling, this absolutely must be done when you have NO ACTIVE ACNE, and you must do your research and buy from a reputable place, I got mine from dermarollershop.com.

So what is dermarolling exactly? Otherwise known as microneedling its essentially a tiny roller with hundreds of teeny needles, that when rolled over the skin caused a controlled trauma, forcing the skin to produce more collagen over a period of time, thus healing acne scarring, wrinkles and pigmentation. I'm going to take you through what actually happened to my skin, so you know what to expect, is it a miracle cure? Nope. But, its as close as we are gonna get with a little hard graft and patience.

THE PREP:

First you're going to need some supplies, dermarolling hurts and there are different lengths of needles you can by but I went with 1.5mm, as my skin is deeply pitted. I bought some EMLA cream to numb out my face before hand, a nice thick layer is needed, and I left it to do its thing for a little over an hour before wiping off, and sanitising my face with diluted hydrogen peroxide.

The next thing I did was sanitise the roller itself in hydrogen peroxide for around an hour (I did this while my face was a'cookin) to make sure any bugs were long gone, and then rested it on a clean towel.

Read the directions as there is a specific way to do this so you don't drag the needles through your face, move slowly over your skin so that every bit is covered evenly, and don't press too hard. You're numb so you cant feel it, but the needles will be doing the work for you. Obviously stay away from the eye area but you knew that.

Now I'd dermarolled I knew what to expect for the first few days, my skin was going to be super pissed and probably peel a little, but it takes around two weeks to start seeing results, here's me the next day, which is known as "the day of false hope".

Now, I knew in my head that this is just my skin extremely swollen from the microneedling, but to me this was a 100% improvement, to the people who are going to try this, I'm sorry Linda but it wont last. Your skin is having a reaction and the collagen is beginning to wake up. My skin felt pretty grainy at this point which is a common side effect, and I made sure to cream it up right nice to treat it to some much needed moisture.

This week was utterly miserable. My skin had reverted to type and looked angrier than before. Searching on some dermarolling forums I found that this was common too, and holding out for a little while will see it calm down. I was hugely sceptical at this point, and I made sure to include in my diet plenty of anti-inflammatory foods like turmeric, honey and ginger to calm this mess of a face down.

Finally after a week and a little into week 2 I started to see significant improvement, my skin felt super tight so I made sure again to keep up with face masks and moisturisers and not to over cleanse. I had no new breakouts although everything was still a little red. my raised bumps and pits I felt were slightly improved though it may have been my imagination.

As you can see from week 3 we are really starting to cook with some gas. As well as my scarring and overall complexion being a little brighter, I noticed the area around my chin was starting to look a little lifted. Before dermarolling my skin had two colours, grey and red. Dare I say by this point I was starting to look a lovely pink human colour.

This week was a little bit of an odd one. I had a monster spot that had appeared on my forehead and had to be taken care of by my special turmeric face mask (an egg white, half a squeeze of lemon and a shit ton of turmeric for anyone who wants the recipe), however the overall feel of my skin was getting better. check out the few red spots are no longer there!

This picture I'm ashamed to say was after a night of drinking wine. However usually after a night on it my skin would be absolutely furious and not this subtly annoyed pink. I'm impressed. I hadn't had time to dermaroll for a second time and plus I thought my healing could go a little further before round two, so I stuck with the usual skin care routine a little longer.

Week six and my skin hasn't looked this good since I was about 17. I know from the untrained eye it still looks flawed, but to me this is a massive improvement. My chin feels 'picked up', and my complexion is looking more and more even every day. I take care of any new monsters with hydrocolloid patches, and I'm planning to dermaroll again next week. Overall I would say that this is a roaring success and I definitely recommend a good rolling for scars and wrinkles. Psychologically this has been a huge help too, my skin was a source of depression for me, and I know it is for a lot of other sufferers. Now I even venture out of the house without layers and layers of slap, which I haven't done in 10 years. Below is the final outcome, watch out for future skin updates on take 2!