The words Derma Roller or Skin Roller are becoming slightly more familiar in the beauty retail world, but they have been commonplace in the beauty industry for quite a while now, and for good reason too.
A derma roller is a hand-held beauty tool with hundreds of very fine needles poking out of the barrel that is rolled back and forth over the skin, puncturing it and tricking the skin into healing and therefore, rejuvenating itself. Sounds painful? It can be, but that all depends on the length of the needle (and your own pain threshold). The needle length can start as low as 0.2mm and go right up to 2.5mm! Different sized needles are used for different conditions and numbing cream is often used before rolling with a longer needle.
In salons, derma rollers have been used for years to maintain youthful looking skin and to treat wrinkles, pigmentation, scarring and stretch marks- all with fantastic results, but this all came at a cost. Salons need to dispose of each derma roller after every treatment and they need to factor in extra time for the numbing cream to take effect, this all bumps up the price of a fairly straight forward treatment. You would also need to visit the salon regularly during a course of treatments (possibly everyday) which often isn’t possible.
Well, thankfully, derma rollers are now available for home-use, and they don’t come much better than Swiss Clinic (and yes, there is a difference). Swiss Clinic derma rollers are made with over 540 micro-needles of Japanese steel and come with a skin-friendly disinfectant spray, which is incredibly important; if you use an unsterilized roller, you will literally push bacteria into the skin and are setting yourself up for a skin nightmare. The same goes for dirty skin (and hands), including active breakouts (pustules) and cold sores- do not use a roller in any of these conditions, you won’t heal them, only spread them.
I usually like to use retinol after rollering, as all the tiny micro channels the roller creates, allow the retinol to quickly get to the deeper layers of the skin, which is where it starts to work. However, Swiss Clinic recommend using their award-winning Rejuvenating Serum with the roller and after a few days use, I can see why. The Rejuvenating Serum contains the active ingredient, Beta-Glucan, which has been proven to stimulate skin rejuvenation (hence the name) and collagen production. The serum also includes antioxidant, vitamin E to improve skin tone and protect against further UV damage. The serum feels so silky and soothing on application, which is a must after such a stimulating treatment (just so you know, if done correctly, i.e in a lattice formation, you will look like you have a moderate sunburn! This should only last a matter of hours though).
Swiss Clinic recommend rollering and applying the serum straight after, every night for 5-7 nights in a row and then taking 5-7 nights off to allow the rejuvenation process to take place, before repeating again. When you first start using a roller, you can sometimes experience a slight dryness or tightness to the skin, if this happens to you, just wait for an hour after rollering and then apply a nice rich night cream on top of the serum. The dryness soon subsides anyway. I noticed that my skin looked brighter after just the 4th day of use, this will probably be due to the circulation boost but each week it looked healthier and much more youthful. I use it on my lips too, which has made them look a bit poutier!
Swiss Clinic also created a Body Roller which is wider than the Face Roller to cover a larger surface area- check out the stretch mark results on their website, they’re incredible! I’ve been attacking my pregnancy stretch marks ever since!
For me, derma rollering has always been a winning treatment (I was a skin specialist for years and this was the treatment I consistently saw great results with), so I will absolutely be continuing with this as part of my skincare routine, but with such great results, my only problem will be gathering the willpower to not over-do it…… !
Skin Renewal System (Skin Roller and Rejuvenating Serum) £79, Sanitizing Spray £11 www.swissclinic.co.uk
*Always remember to discontinue derma roller use at least 5 days before going to hot climates, UK summer is fine(!) just use a daily spf.