By Kelsie Matthews, L.E.
I’m sure most of you that have heard of microneedling treatments have seen the crazy looking pictures of peoples faces on the internet, but you might be wondering how accurate those actually are and if you will look the same after yours. A few years back, a picture of Kim Kardashian went viral after her “Vampire Facial”. People were shocked over the “blood” that was covering her face. The side effects that she got from her treatment were actually pretty realistic for a typical microneedling treatment done properly.
Here are 5 things you can expect after your microneedling treatment:
- Sunburnt look. For about 24-48 hour post treatment, your skin will look like you’ve had a terrible sunburn. The redness is most prominent within the first few hours after the treatment, and reduces greatly by the next morning.
- No makeup. For 24 hours post procedure, it is best to avoid putting anything on your skin, besides what your provider instructs you to. This includes tap water, skin care products, and makeup. Because of the fact you have thousands of little tiny holes in your skin, we want to avoid putting on anything that could cause an infection or breakout. After about 24 hours, those micro-channels should be closed up enough to use gentle products and makeup on the skin if needed.
- Slight swelling. It is very normal for people to have slight inflammation after receiving a microneedling treatment. This typically only lasts up to 24 hours, but there can still be slight puffiness for a few days after due to the immune system responding to the “trauma” that occurred to the skin.
- Sunburn-like flaking. Microneedling doesn’t typically cause full peeling for most people, but it is common for the skin to get dry and flake in certain areas, similar to when you get a bad sunburn. It is important to avoid picking at the skin when and if this does happen, to avoid complications.
- Bloody skin. One way to know that a microneedling treatment was done aggressive enough is petechiae bleeding in the skin during the treatment. The goal is not to have you dripping blood, but to have pinpoint bleeding. This just means that the needles on the device went deep enough in the skin to reach the cells that produce collagen and elastin.
Although every patient is different as far as how their skin will react to a treatment like microneedling, these are the five main things you should expect after getting this done. Microneedling is one of the best treatments for acne scarring, shrinking pores, and general anti-aging. And luckily it has very little downtime as well. Come on in and try Microneedling out with one of our well-experienced, knowledgeable, and friendly Licensed Estheticians!