Finding the key to perfect, healthy skin is like looking for a needle in the beauty haystack. And while perfection is near impossible, healthy, rejuvenated skin is otherwise achievable.
With the innovations in skincare and beauty treatments, we find that the key is, in fact, an actual needle — a microneedling pen, to be exact. Microneedling is a form of collagen induction therapy (CIT). It is a minimally invasive cosmetic procedure that encourages the skin to make more collagen and elastin by pricking it with tiny sterilized needles.
How It Works
The microneedling pen creates microscopic damage to your skin which tricks it into thinking it needs to repair itself. This natural wound healing process of the skin happens in four phases:
1. Hemostasis – The wounds may be minuscule and only skin-deep, but they trigger your body’s immune system to respond and naturally disinfect the wounds. The objective of phase 1 is to stop the bleeding and block the drainage. Platelets come into contact with collagen during this process, and an enzyme called thrombin initiates the formation of a fibrin mesh to strengthen the platelet clumps into a stable clot
2. Inflammation – Phase 2 focuses essentially on preparing the wound bed for the growth of new tissue. There is clearing out of damaged and dead cells along with bacteria and other pathogens or debris and increased blood flow.
3. Proliferation – In this phase, your skin starts to rebuild itself with new cells, blood vessels, and temporary collagen deposits. Wound contraction occurs, and the new cells proliferate and ‘crawl’ atop the wound bed, providing cover for the new tissue.
4. Remodeling – The collagen from phase 2 is replaced by even stronger collagen, and the maturation of tissue repair begins. Here, collagen fibers reorganize, and the new tissue slowly gains strength and flexibility.
Microneedling isn’t invasive like plastic surgery, and it has no major side effects, so recovery time is short. Most people require minimal downtime, if any at all. Generally, it is considered safe for people in overall good health.
Furthermore, microneedling is considered safe for darker skin tones, unlike laser therapy or other minimally invasive skin corrective treatments. It doesn’t affect the outer layer of skin. It is considered safe for thin and sensitive skin as well.
Multiple sessions and perhaps other complementing treatments may be needed depending on your individual goals. But in theory, beautiful results are noticeable shortly thereafter.
How It Benefits Your Skin
Microneedling has many awesome benefits, and here are 12 of the most notable:
1. It reduces fine lines and wrinkles.
Collagen is an essential protein responsible for healthy joints and skin elasticity, keeping your skin looking youthful. As you age, your collagen production declines, causing the appearance of wrinkles and other signs of aging.
Nope, you wouldn’t want to look older than your age — which would be the case if you don’t keep those lines and wrinkles in check. Good thing microneedling effectively and powerfully stops the signs of premature aging as well as prevents new wrinkles and fine lines from occurring. The wound-healing mechanisms of microneedling stimulate your body to produce new skin cells, making fine lines, crow’s feet, and forehead wrinkles less apparent. Done with consistent use of corrective antioxidant serums, this procedure aids in brightening your skin and giving it a youthful glow!
2. It prevents saggy skin.
Besides wrinkles and discoloration, aging and the subsequent loss of elastin and collagen causes the skin to lose its elasticity, so it appears lax, thin, and sagging. By encouraging the skin to make new tissue, microneedling stimulates natural elastin and collagen production to help make the skin firmer. Microneedling can also be done on other parts of the body, such as your stomach or thighs.
3. It gives the skin a fresh glow.
If your skin looks dull and lackluster, microneedling can be of help. The buildup of collagen in response to the tiny wounds can improve your skin structure and give you a radiant, fresh glow shortly after a session.
As a bonus: If all you want is an exfoliating facial, you can use our microneedling pen with MICRO tips instead of needles. These tips use tiny nano micro electrical current points to stimulate the epidermis. It’s like microdermabrasion but better as it tightens the skin and removes the dead skin cells, creating a fresh glow after the treatment is done.
4. It improves the appearance of scars.
By breaking down old tissue and stimulating the production of new collagen and elastin, microneedling rejuvenates your skin and helps smoothen out its appearance, filling in fine lines, wrinkles, and—yes —scars. To that end, microneedling may be used for burn scars, acne scars, and surgical scars.
5. It shrinks pores.
Don’t fret, microneedling doesn’t increase the size of your pores even though it involves punching holes in your skin. On the contrary, it helps reduce pore size. As the collagen around your pores is stimulated, the area around each pore plumps, tightening the skin and creating the appearance of smaller pores.
6. It evens out your skin tone.
Skin discoloration doesn’t do any physical harm, but it’s otherwise frustrating and causes you to feel self-conscious. Microneedling can do something about that. Its ability to stimulate new collagen production and skin cells can reinvigorate your skin and even your tone. So it is effective in reducing the appearance of sun damage, particularly age spots and hyperpigmentation or melasma.
7. It improves the potency of topical skin products.
The porations created by microneedling become channels for serums, gels, and other products to penetrate deeper into the skin, thereby reaching the damaged cells in the dermal layer.
Post-microneedling, then, is the prime time to apply topical treatments, such as anti-aging and acne treatments, stretch mark creams, and moisturizers.
8. It helps treat acne.
Because of the improved delivery of topical acne solutions, microneedling can be used to treat acne. Regular microneedling coupled with acne applications can help improve your skin texture and clear up the unsightly skin irregularities like pimples, blackheads, and whiteheads.
9. It reduces the appearance of stretch marks.
Stretch marks are a common skin concern among both women and men. With various causes like hereditary, pregnancy, rapid growth, sudden gain/loss of weight, or stress, they could appear most commonly in places like your abdominal wall, thighs, upper arms, buttocks, and breasts. They prove to be rather challenging to deal with, and very few cosmetic treatments are able to make them disappear or at least improve their appearance.
Topical solutions may alleviate stretch marks, but their results are short-lived. What you need is something that will penetrate your skin at the dermis level to start the healing — and you can do this with microneedling. Especially when combined with topical creams and other treatments, such as Fraxel and other laser treatments, microneedling has been shown to improve the appearance of stretch marks.
10. It treats rosacea.
Rosacea is quite common and, depending on its classification, can be associated with symptoms of swelling, redness, and acne-breakouts (papulopustular rosacea); thickened skin and bumpy texture (phymatous rosacea); flushing, redness, and visible blood vessels (erythematotelangiectatic rosacea); or irritated and red eyes, swollen eyelids, and sty (ocular rosacea). If you suffer from this condition, you’re experiencing a breakdown of collagen.
There is no known cure for rosacea, but microneedling can address its symptoms of ruddiness and skin thickening. Microneedling stimulates collagen production to offset and replace this breakdown, reducing your skin’s overall redness.
11. It can help treat hair loss (alopecia).
Like the skin on your face, the scalp also loses collagen with aging, resulting in hair loss. Both collagen and hair follicles exist within the same layer of the skin (the dermis), so the scalp can also benefit from microneedling as it regenerates the health of hair follicles. Microneedling can help induce stem cells in the hair follicles that may result in new hair growth or perhaps thicken thinning hair as seen in androgenic alopecia or male pattern baldness. Microneedling may also promote the absorption of products used to treat your hair loss, such as topical steroids and platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
12. It is safer and more convenient than other laser and chemical peel treatments.
Microneedling has fewer side effects than laser and other intensive peel solutions, so you can enjoy its amazing results shortly after treatment (within 24-72 hours). Downtime is relatively shorter compared to laser resurfacing, which could take 3-10 days, and medium or intensive peel, 14-21 days.
Final Thoughts
Microneedling is a collagen induction therapy that can benefit you in many ways. It reduces enlarged pores, fine lines, and wrinkles; diminishes scarring, stretch marks, and hyperpigmentation; treats acne, rosacea, and hair loss; and tightens or rejuvenates loose or aging skin to deliver overall skin rejuvenation. It’s a generally safe and effective procedure that can improve your skin’s overall appearance and health. You just have to have that microneedling penthat works best for you and give it a try.
