What is skin needling? What are the benefits

Skin needling sounds scary, doesn’t it? Never fear, it is not as scary as it sounds and has amazing benefits for your skin. 

What is Skin Needling 

Skin needling is tiny needles that penetrate the upper layers of the skin to form a controlled injury to the skin. This injury then stimulates a healing response in the skin and causes collagen to be produced. If the injury has damaged scar tissue or stretch marks, we aim for the body to replace this with new healthy tissue.

How is Skin Needling Done? 

Traditional skin needling was done with a roller. This consisted of tiny sharp needles attached to a plastic or metal roller that was rolled across the skin manually. This was not the most pleasant procedure as it was uncomfortable for the client and often caused bruising and bleeding of the skin. People could look quite beaten up after this treatment and need downtime. The new ways of needling are now much more pleasant and use guns like a tattoo gun. This makes the treatment relatively pain-free and with much fewer after effects, but still just as effective.

What are Skin Needling Side Effects? 

There are no long-term side effects from skin needling when in the hands of an experienced practitioner. Those with darker skins or those prone to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation need to start on pigment inhibiting skincare to reduce the risk of developing pigment. After the treatment, you just look red and can have slight swelling for up to 12 hours, and then this resolves. In extreme cases, this may last for a few days but is rare. You could have it done in the afternoon and go back to work the next day. Whilst doing the treatment we can also infuse serums to treat things such as pigment problems, and acne, to increase the effects of the needling itself. 

What are the Benefits of Skin Needling? 

The main benefits of skin needling are to produce healthy, firm skin and improve the appearance of fine lines, scars, and stretch marks. It can also be beneficial in treating pigmentation. The basis behind skin needling is to cause small, controlled injuries to the skin to stimulate a healing response. when the skin is healing it produces collagen which is the main building block for skin. If the tissue is injured, such as, when you cut yourself the body lays these healing properties down quickly and can often be seen as a scar. When we have a small, controlled injury, the body will heal slowly and lay down lots of collagen. If we place these control injuries in something such as an acne scar, we aim for that the body to replace the damaged tissue with healthy tissue. 

Skin Needling Aftercare 

After your treatment, we will place a protective barrier cream on the skin. That night, we advise you to leave your skin clean from skincare and make-up. The next day you can use gentle skincare, but we were advising no active skincare such as vitamin A for a few days. Makeup can be applied the next day, but we would advise mineral makeup is it is anti-inflammatory and also won’t clog the skin. You will find that the skin may appear dry for the next week or so. This isn’t the skin being dry, it is the dead tissue coming off the skin, so gentle exfoliation can be beneficial using something such as our fruit enzyme mask by Aspect.

Find out more from U Skin Clinics

Skin needling is a great way to stimulate collagen in your skin, treat imperfections and scars and get that beautiful glowing complexion you’ve always wanted. Book with one of our amazing skilled dermal therapists today!