The same principle is behind most laser rejuvenation treatments, acid peels and other invasive skin rejuvenating methods. The laser either evaporates the top layer(s) of the skin entirely or it evaporates only fractions of the skin (“Fraxel laser”).

A closeup of this procedure being performed:

A dermaroller creates microinjuries (tiny vertical channels in the dermis) mechanically, while fractional laser treatment makes them thermically. But the principle is the same. The resulting collagen production will slowly  progress even months after the treatment.

When you sting yourself with a needle, you mechanically damage some skin cells. Those cells are too damaged to function properly and our body will immediately start removing those cells. These cells are then being replaced by new cells.

So based on this principle, dermarolling speeds up the turnover of the skin and thus speeds up the diminishing of pigmentations, post-acne spots, age spots etc.

The skin’s top layer is the epidermis, with a thickness of 0.05 to 0.2 mm, depending on its location. Below that lies the dermis, with a thickness of 0.5 (eyelids) to 2 mm (on the back). The soles of the feet have the thickest dermis, around 4 mm. In order to trigger collagen production, you have to reach the dermis. A 0.5 mm dermaroller reaches the top of the dermis and improves the overall skin texture and skin tone. Dermarollers shorter than 0.5 mm enhance the penetration of skin care products into the skin, improve very shallow pigmentations and thicken the epidermis.

How dermarolling and needling in general works on stretch marks and scars:

Scar tissue, whether raised, flat or indented is usually abundant in collagen but the scar collagen is thick and typically woven in a different pattern than in the normal skin.

Scar tissue isn’t really too different from normal skin, it’s only the thickness and patterns of the fibers that differ.

Crushing the scar tissue will crush the scar pattern of the fibers and the body will often remodel the scar into a smoother, better looking, softer scar.

Our body does not expend effort on fixing things does not consider “broken”. Scar tissue is just a cosmetic problem, it is not perceived as an issue worthy of fixing further by the body. Dermaneedling is a strategy to force the body to remodel the scar. The trick is that making tiny pricks is not sufficient damage to cause a scar but it is enough for the body to consider needled skin as “broken”. Dermaneedling triggers healing processes. Unfortunately, our body usually does not bother replacing the scar tissue completely with normal skin – especially when the scar is deep – but it often replaces it with a mixture of scar- and normal tissue, producing a better looking scar.

So dermarolling triggers healing processes and the body tends to heal the area in a way – at least partially – as normal skin should look like. Indented scars fill in and raised scars flatten. It does not work in all cases, but in most people it does work.

Acne scars don’t contain much scar tissue but they are atrophied (missing tissue). The scar will slowly or partially fill in with collagen triggered by a dermaroller, dermastamp or single needle. Wrinkles will also partially fill in.

In addition, needling a hypopigmented scar will facilitate the migration of melanocytes (skin-pigment producing cells)  from the surrounding skin into the scar and improve its color.

The advantages of dermarolling over other methods:

Dermarolling does not remove any skin layers. It only makes pricks into the skin. That is why the skin heals rapidly from dermarolling comparing to methods that remove skin layers. Dermarolling is for that reason also much less prone to infection or healing complication and it has a very short downtime.

Dermarolling can go very deep into the skin, up to 2 mm. If you went that deep with ablative methods (acid peels, ablative lasers) you could easily end up with scars or serious skin damage, because a laser physically removes part of the skin by evaporating it, and a needle only pricks the skin without actually creating a real “empty” hole where skin tissue has been removed.

Lasers or IPL use heat and heating up the skin is prone to collateral damage such as burns, hyper- or hypo-pigmentation and even scars.

Dermarolling is cheaper than other rejuvenating/remodeling methods.

Dermarolling thickens the skin.

Dermarolling can be used anywhere on the body, including the areas with thin skin such as the neck or the top of the hands (except for the area of the upper eyelids and right below the lower eyelashes due to the risk of  eyeball injury).

Dermarolling highly enhances the penetration of skin care products into the skin. In order to protect us, the skin is almost impermeable. Dermarolling makes the skin temporarily very permeable for skin care products.

Because an ordinary tattoo machine is too harsh on the skin, as it deeply penetrates the skin 50 or 60 times a second (depending on your mains frequency). So our idea was to design a machine that would needle much slower  (at least ten times slower, a bit like like a sewing machine) and have a set of needles instead of just one. After some experimentation and brainstorming, we came to the conclusion that this was not an easy task. Practical design considerations required a needling speed equal to the mains frequency (50 or 60 Hz). But that would be too fast for optimal results in our opinion, and moreover, it would require enormous power if you’d want to drive a dozen needles into the skin simultaneously. A slow-moving, powerful needling machine with multiple needles would cost a lot of money and be heavy to handle, so we abandoned the idea.

However, there have been a lot of such devices offered for sale lately, so we bought one and tested it:

This is not the “Dermapen” brand but a similar device. This device claims to needle to a maximum depth of 1 mm, but we found it nearly impossible to penetrate the skin. We had to press hard onto the skin at the maximum power setting to get some redness occurring, and that only on the inside of the wrist and other such places. The device, with a suggested retail price of hundreds of dollars, did not come with a European power plug or even a user manual. Its manufacturer spent a great deal of effort making the thing look expensive – it comes in a fancy case – but the device itself is of poor quality. Rotating knobs have a stuck feeling to them and the device feels like a cheap plastic gadget. The chrome looking part is made of plastic. The switch halfway the cord does something to the speed or power of the device – we were unable to ascertain exactly what, as on no setting it properly penetrated the skin.

We think that the concept is interesting but we will not purchase other such devices to test because firstly, we’d have to pay hundreds of dollars per model and secondly, we do not believe that the other models have a significantly better performance. The problem is that in order to drive twelve needles through the skin, you’d need a lot of force. To do this fifty times a second requires a lot more force than a light, thin device can muster. So these devices, in spite of the needle lengths of up to 2 mm, don’t actually push their needles that deep into the skin. The pen-needler would have to be much heavier for the electromagnet to be able to be that strong.

Spare needle heads are very expensive, so needling costs about the same as with a dermaroller or dermastamp. One spare needle head has a suggested retail price that comes close to the price of the dermastamp we sell. They are sold in bulk to companies like us for a couple of dollars a piece, but as it is in this business, most vendors are only interested in cold, hard cash and will charge outrageous prices, as usual.

One of our concerns with such devices is that they may tear the skin, when not expertly operated. When working as advertised, its 12 needles are “down” into the skin about 50% of the time, 25% quite deeply. Now, with a derma roller, you roll the needles in and out, but with the derma pen, you move the needle head sideways, so the needles will be moved sideways while they are still inside your skin, with no way to get out of the skin until the needle head is pulled upwards again by the machine. This means that if you move the machine too fast, it will cause micro-tearing (lateral shearing) of the skin. And if you move too slowly, it will make too many holes in the skin (50 Hz x 12 needles = 600 a second in Europe and 720 a second in countries with a 60 Hz mains frequency such as the United States). So you need to know exactly how fast to move the device, but that depends on your mains frequency, the make and model of the device, the selected needle length and the electromechanical particulars of the way the needle head moves in and out (the “duty-cycle”).

If anyone has purchased a different model that actually works as advertised and does not cost an arm and a leg, we’d be happy to hear about it so we can add it to our assortment. What we are looking for is pinpoint bleeding on the 1.5 or 2 mm setting without the need to push down hard, and preferably a speed that can be regulated to far below the mains frequency. We don’t think such devices exist yet. Please – if you mention brands or post links – only do so when you have actually tried it, the product is available for sale to ordinary consumers and has a needle length of at least 1.5 mm.

Conclusion: Interesting concept but not yet ready for prime time. We’ll definitely will start selling them when we can find one that actually works, and when it’s reasonably affordable (this one would have to cost $300,- retail). At the moment we decided we can’t resell anything that’s available for bulk wholesale purchase (all these devices are made in China) because we are certain that a significant percentage of customers would want their money back. The manufacturer promised that there will be a user manual soon, but dismissed our complaint that the device was too feeble for its intended purpose.

Not all crows’ feet respond to dermarolling

Many of our customers reported a reduction of wrinkles and improved skin texture. From my own experience, I reduced the wrinkles between my eyebrows (11′s) with single needling and on my forehead and around the lips (this area was really painful to roll) with dermarollers. The wrinkles are still visible but they filled in noticeably. Unfortunately, my crows’ feet are not responding to dermarolling. Perhaps due to the fact that they are constantly reinforced by muscle activity by smiling (I do not use Botox). Do not expect that all your wrinkles will respond the same way to dermarolling.

The advantage of wrinkles being filled in by the collagen production triggered with dermarolling or needling is that the results are really long-lasting compared to injected fillers. Restylan, Perlane or other fillers based on cross-linked hyaluronic acid are very expensive and they are relatively quickly metabolized by the body, so they have to be re-injected every few months. The results of dermarolling, a cheap method, will last for years, although they are not “permanent” because a dermaroller can’t stop aging and the wrinkles will eventually start to re-form. Dermarolling maintenance is necessary.

You should know that a dermaroller and other microneedling instruments such as dermastamp or the single needle can only affect the skin itself and not the underlying structures (fat, muscles etc). For this reason, they cannot for example improve “hollowness” under the eyes caused by fat recession (as we age, the subcutaneous fat recedes), neither it can significantly improve the nasolabial fold because it is not a wrinkle but a fold caused by a drop of the facial structures. Long-term dermarolling thickens the skin, fills up wrinkles, lines and scars but it has a limited effect on the nasolabial fold.

Dermarolling can’t fully remove stretch marks

Don’t believe claims that it can. Neither can any laser-based device. Stretch marks are deep scars in the dermis and there is currently no method that can remove them. Dermarolling or needling can very significantly improve the appearance of stretch marks but it cannot make them disappear.  What you can expect after many months of dermarolling and needling of stretch marks:

• improved texture
• improved color – the color blends much more with the surrounding skin
• slightly less indentation and/or width
• tiny areas of normal skin appear in the stretch mark (islets of normal skin)

Especially when dermarolling is combined with single needling, you can expect a combination of at least a few of the above.

I am often asked whether needling can gradually replace scar tissue with normal tissue, e.g. when done monthly, for years.  My honest answer is that needling scars is a new method that has not been around long enough to know the answer. So far, none of our customers achieved a complete resolution of their stretch marks. Also not of surgical scars, nor scars that resulted from serious injury. A couple of customers said that some of their smallest, shallowest stretch marks had disappeared (initially, the stretch mark broke up and became fragmented and the fragments gradually disappeared after more needling). The most common feedback is that their stretch marks improved but have not vanished; not even after one and half year of monthly needling.  Since scars are merely a cosmetic issue, our body does not bother to replace scar tissue with normal skin. Skin microinjuries (which is what needling or dermarolling does) are a clever trick to force the skin into remodeling and regeneration. The microinjuries are not big enough to cause more scar tissue but they are big enough to trigger healing processes and regeneration. Unfortunately, the induced regeneration doesn’t completely replace scar tissue by normal skin; it normalizes the skin only partially.

Whether partial normalization of scar tissue is the terminal point of microneedling or whether the scar tissue will gradually be replaced by normal skin until the scar is gone is still unknown. Until we know, it is unethical to advertize a dermaroller for stretch mark removal. Nonetheless, any improvement of a stretch mark or scar is a victory. Until very recently, there was no method able to achieve even a noticeable improvement.

It may be possible, but it is also still unknown whether or not dermarolling can partially prevent stretch mark formation in pregnancy.

Dermarolling can more-or-less reverse skin aging

The skin consists of two main layers. The epidermis and the dermis.

The epidermal cells turn over quick. The epidermal cells are constantly being produced at the bottom of epidermis, and then they travel up and are eventually sloughed off from the skin’s surface. It takes about twenty days for the cells to get from the bottom of the epidermis to the skin surface where they are sloughed off. This continuous process slows down as we age but it is still extremely rapid, compared to the turnover of the dermis.

The cells in the dermis have an extremely slow turnover. The half-life of dermal collagen is about fifteen years!

What does this mean:

You are born with millions of collagen cells in the dermis.

• When you are 15 years old, 50% of the original collagen cells remain (the rest were replaced).
• When you are 30 years old, 25% of the original collagen is still in your skin.
• When you are 45 years old, 12.5% of the original collagen is still in your skin.
• When you are 60 years old, 6.25% of the original collagen is still in your skin.

And again, the newly formed collagen has a half-life turnover of about 15 years.

When you are for example 60 years old, some of the original collagen you had as a newborn is still in your skin. This collagen has been subjected to sun damage and other damage for 60 years. It is no wonder we get wrinkles and sun-damaged skin! Elastin has an even longer half-life turnover. It is about 70 years. Sigh.

When collagen gets damaged, the body immediately repairs it but unfortunately, as we age, the repairs turn out rather provisory and to make matters worse – we’re faced with diminishing collagen levels.

This extremely slow turnover of the cells in the dermis is the reason why a tattoo in the deep dermis (>1 mm) lasts a lifetime. A Tattoo will slightly lighten over the years but its pigment weathers the decades. “Permanent” makeup is not inserted that deep so it doesn’t last as long  as a tattoo.

The big deal with dermarolling is that you can trick the body to trigger collagen and elastin much sooner than the natural rate of turnover.

Dermarolling with needles that reach the dermis causes tiny microinjuries in it and the body sees it as a high priority to fix them. These microinjuries will trigger new collagen. But sadly, the skin will never be as perfect as when you were young.

Ablative methods, such as acid peels or ablative lasers can’t be used to reach the dermis due to the risk of scarring and hypopigmentation. But a dermaroller very easily can go that deep, because it does not ablate the skin, it only pricks it. Since the pricks are surrounded by untreated skin, the regeneration happens very quickly. It takes long to achieve results because every time you roll, you only prick small fractions of the skin. Be patient and repeat the microneedling procedure on yourself as often and as long as it takes.

Dermarolling will speed up the turnover of dermal cells and this can slow down (but not stop) the signs of skin aging. Maybe not all signs but at least some.

Dermarolling and hyperpigmentation, melasma

Usually, hyperpigmentation is the result of locally uneven/excessive melanin production. Melanin is the pigment that determines the color of our skin. When our skin is exposed to the sun, it produces more melanin as a natural protection – melanin absorbs UV. Unfortunately, melanin is not always produced totally evenly, especially in individuals with darker skin.

Uneven/excessive melanin production can also be the result of skin trauma – sun burns, acne, cuts, bug bites etc. If the hyperpigmentation resides in the epidermis, it responds very well to dermarolling. If it is in the dermis (deeper part of the skin), it also responds but it takes much longer. Hyperpigmentation in the dermis is too deep for acid peels but not too deep for a dermaroller. You have to avoid excessive sun exposure and always use a sunscreen. Ignoring this advice may lead to a reappearance of  the pigmentation.

Using a dermaroller to facilitate the skin penetration of skin whitening creams can be a very successful treatment for persistent or deep hyperpigmentation or melasma but you have to be careful with hydroquinone (a common skin whitening agent). The long-term usage of a high percentage of hydroquinone in combination with sun exposure can cause dark pigmentation. Do not apply high concentrations for a very long time.

I hesitate to recommend a dermaroller for melasma. Dermarolling triggers inflammation and inflammation or any kind of skin irritation can in principle worsen melasma. For the same reason, a dermaroller should not be used on Rosacea. Always do a test patch first if you use a dermaroller for melasma.

Dermarolling works against hypopigmentation

Treating hypopigmentation with dermaroller and needling showed very good results. Hypopigmented skin has malfunctioning or absent melanocytes (melanin producing cells). Skin needling triggers melanocytes production and enables migration of melanocytes from the surrounding skin into the hypopigmented area.

Dermarolling acne scars – patience rewarded

If you got what it takes – the patience and perseverance for long-term dermarolling, dermastamping and single needling – you are destined for success. Major improvement of acne scars was the most common feedback we have received.

Some of our customers combined dermarolling with other methods such as saline injections or the suction method. Both methods are explained on our forum.

Dermarolling to reduce pore size – not really

Not many customers were successful in reducing the pore size. Pores are not scars, pores are ducts in the skin and there is currently no method that can reliably and permanently reduce them. Dermarolling however often helped normalize acne prone skin and post-acne pigmentations.

Dermarolling sun-damaged skin works well

You can expect excellent results in renewing the sun-damaged skin of the face, décolleté and to a lesser extent of the forearms and the back of the hands.  Application of Tretinoin (Retinoic acid or A-Ret) further boosts improvement.

Needling sagged skin – works but no miracles

Dermarolling can improve mild skin laxity and crêpey skin on the face, neck and body or a wrinkly post-pregnancy abdomen, provided there is not too much excessive skin. The bulging, sagging abdomen after pregnancy is often due to the abdominal muscles not having gone fully back to their original position – this can only be fixed by a tummy tuck.

You can greatly improve a tummy tuck scar or a C-section scar by needling. The scar will soften and becomes less visible. Dermarolling cannot get rid of excessive skin after major weight loss. Skin folds can only be fixed by plastic surgery.

In the process of aging, the face and the neck start to “hang” due to:

- loosening of ligaments that attach the skin to the bones
- gravity
- loss of fat and descending of fat
- loss of elasticity.

Dermarolling can improve mild skin laxity but it cannot fix severely “hanging” skin.

The situation is even more complex on the neck. There is a muscle running from the collarbones to the jaw (Platysma muscle). This thin muscle holds the subcutaneous fat and everything else tightly in. When fat deposits accumulate in the platysma muscle area, we end up with a double chin. As we age, the platysma muscle slightly falls which causes jowls and a hanging neck. In addition, the muscle often starts separating in the midline of the neck, which allows fat protrusion that further contributes to a sagging neck.

Dermarolling cannot fix the problems related to the platysma muscle – it can only improve skin texture mild skin laxity of the neck.

Wild claims to sell more rollers

Some websites say that dermarolling reverses gray hair, completely removes cellulite, helps with slimming, enhances breast size and so on. It’s all nonsense.

They call it “Anti Aging Acupuncture Breast Enhancement treatment”. This is of course complete nonsense, as dermarolling  thickens the skin only – and by less than a millimeter. Dermarolling  or microneedling certainly can’t in any way, shape or form increase breast size. More about that later in this article.

Apparently to maximize profits whilst at the same time being able to defend themselves against the exposure of the absurd claim that microneedling can increase breast volume, they say: “It is essential that the roller is used with the Anti Aging serum, the herbs are vitally essential to the process”. Amazing. They have a magic potion that can make your breasts larger. Magical thinkers may believe such claims, but us scientific folks prefer to see some evidence before we pay 85 + 30 dollars for a tiny bottle of self-made liquid and a roller which familiar design looks identical to that of the worst dermaroller in our dermaroller review.

White Lotus Anti Aging presents some pictures, for which we found strong evidence that they are fraudulent:

They go through great lengths assuring us that their images are in no way manipulated, and that 99% of all images online are Photoshopped but theirs aren’t. They are in fact correct in saying that their images are not manipulated. But that is the only truthful thing they say about those pictures that we republish here, for review purposes (fair use). The breast pictures are deliberately misrepresented, and do not at all show breast enhancement, if anything at all, they show in fact breast reduction, as we will show below.

First of all, we need the original photographs on their website, not the reduced versions that you see in your browser. In order to save an image in a browser, you right-click and select “Save”. However, White Lotus has disabled that, because when you right-click, this message appears:

That’s strange.. The common way of protecting images is to put a Copyright message on them, the so-called “watermarking”. That way, if people reuse your images, they’ll be advertizing for your site, so that is an effective deterrent. Of course, putting a copyright message on an image that is in fact copyrighted by someone else is an illegal act, so if you do not really own the copyright, you can’t do that and have to resort to other means. The message gives the impression that White Lotus owns the copyright, but in fact it only says that they are “copyrighted”. Clever.

We do not have the same budget as White Lotus but our badly paid webmaster is not born yesterday and knew a way to download “their” photo’s anyway: He simply did “File – Save page as HTML”. Then he had the actual images as they are stored on White Lotus’ server, and a timestamped copy of their entire “dermarolling before and after” page. He said we needed it in case they would deny our evidence or even sue us, or take them offline or alter them. Update: We received a legal threat from White Lotus, saying they consider suing us for defamation-related damages. They did not explain how their “before” picture is dated after their “after” picture.

Misrepresenting pictures

Our webmaster told us something we were very surprised about but it is true: When you make a photo with a digital camera, the camera embeds a lot of information into the image. Invisibly. This is called EXIF and the details can be read on Wikipedia here. If you have a way of retrieving that EXIF information, you can see when the picture was taken. The camera puts the date and time into the Jpeg image. Digital camera’s have an internal clock, like video recorders etc. have. And that information survives image editing – it keeps being preserved, even when you cut and paste it into Photoshop. This is to make the life of professional photographers and media people easier. They need to have a reliable method of verifying the “credentials” of the photo, so to speak. Scanners also embed EXIF data. EXIF data is reliable – it has been used as evidence in court cases involving the manufacture of child porn.

There is an online service where you can paste the URL of an image and get some of that EXIF info:

http://regex.info/exif.cgi

I encourage you to go to White Lotus’ before-and-after pictures and verify for yourself that what say is true. Here is the “before” picture, taken from

http://www.whitelotusantiaging.co.uk/dermaroller_before_and_after_s/68.htm

Update: White Lotus has removed the evidence, as was to be expected.

..and here is the “after” picture:

Update: White Lotus has removed the evidence, as was to be expected.

The “after” picture was taken 33 days before the “before” picture!

We asked our technical wizard webmaster to go through all before-and-after pictures on that page and he told us the following:

- Almost all photographs are made with the same camera, the Olympus FE210. Meaning, they were not submitted by individual customers of their dermarollers but rather their source is a clinic of some sort.

- The photo’s that have (sometimes obscured) faces on them are in his opinion not created with a camera or scanner, but they have in his opinion been copied from a PDF displayed on screen because they lack EXIF data and they are of much lesser quality than the other images.

Conclusion: These photo’s are likely not copyrighted by White Lotus. In our opinion, those photo’s were neither made by White Lotus, not were they submitted by their customers. In addition to that, White Lotus’ assertion that they portray “before” and “after” pictures is demonstrably false.

White Lotus has crossed the line of what can be tolerated when they started to claim that dermarolling can increase breast size. It’s scamming, plain and simple and we do not want our customers to tell us that there is something wrong with our rollers and our vitamin creams because “Their breasts didn’t get bigger, as they do when White Lotus’ products are used”.

Another reason is that White Lotus has crossed another line when they started to spread deliberate nonsense on their site. Nonsense intended to take sales away from bona-fide, ethical competitors and move those sales to them. White Lotus spreads the rather monstrous lie that using vitamin A products in association with microneedling may cause “liver damage”. They keep stressing that their serums are “natural” and that anything else is “artificial” and “toxic”. This FUD is part of their business strategy – vitamin creams are much more expensive than self-made herbal potions, and their business model requires big profits in order to be able to  grow large, using affiliates and agressive, expensive marketing.  They claim many things and most of it is utter nonsense, but those wild, unsubstantiable claims serve to move customers away from us consciencious, scientific-oriented small-scale vendors and towards their multi-million dollar business with their magical Chinese herbal potions that make your boobs bigger. Their pictures prove it – or do they?

We have no problem with healthy competition, but White Lotus is a cynical company. They peddle quackery. They charge outrageous prices for dirt-cheap, low-quality products and they spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about competitor’s products. They use every dirty advertizing trick in the book to win confidence and to increase their Google ranking – including paying seedy search-engine-optimization companies to spam the whole internet with links to their sites. White Lotus does not care about your skin – they care about their bottom line. If they truly cared about your skin, they would not bash proven vitamins in favor of their unproven “herbal serums”. White Lotus runs a multi-level marketing business, where you can sign up as an affiliate to peddle their wares. Such a scheme is only feasible when there is a huge margin on the products. That’s why they sell the cheapest dermaroller on the Chinese market. That roller costs around three dollar fifty, bulk wholesale. It has such a floppy handle that it’s impossible to apply constant pressure or even hold a steady course, to give but one example why this is a bad roller.

The claim that dermarolling enhances breast volume by increasing collagen is ludicrous.

Breasts consist mainly of fat. There are also mammary glands, blood vessels, nerves and fibrous tissue but the main “structural material“ in the breasts is fat and the size of your breasts depends on how much fat you have in them.

Breasts themselves have no muscles (apart from nipple muscles to erect the nipple and nodule muscles). That is why you cannot enlarge breasts by exercising and female bodybuilders have almost no breasts (most of them have implants) due to their extremely low body fat content.  There is a muscle behind breasts and underneath breasts but not in breasts.

There is no way a dermaroller can cause the production of fat or anyhow enhance breast volume. A dermaroller cannot even reach the fatty tissue. A dermaroller affects the skin only and to the depth of the needles used. That means that not even if White Lotus magical miracle potion would do everything it claims to do such as “increase blood circulation”, it would only increase blood circulation for a while in the skin.

Dermarolling increases collagen production in the skin and can thicken the skin somewhat, but microneedling can’t possibly increase breast size by more than half a millimeter or so. Half a millimeter of gain is a great improvement for the skin because the skin itself is only a couple of millimeters thick.  Thickening the skin by for example 0.2 mm will noticeably reduce wrinkles, scars and improve overall skin texture but anyone claiming that this will improve the volume of your cleavage is trying to fool you.

Microneedling can improve the skin texture of your breasts, it can improve the appearance of stretch marks on the breasts, it can improve pigmentations, sun damage and other skin related problems. Dermarolling/microneedling is excellently suited to improve scars that were the result of breast augmentation surgery though.

But there is no way it can enhance breast volume or lift the breasts – regardless of what expensive “serums” you roll into the skin on your breasts. Contrary to what the miracle serum peddlers want you to believe, increased blood flow and other phenomena can’t possible result in larger breasts, even if their claims were true about increased blood flow in the breast tissue, which they are not.

Silicone/saline solution implants, or injections with one’s own fat are used to enhance breast size. Microneedling can’t help you with that, and if your goal is to enlarge your breasts, you should not buy our products. Neither should you buy from White Lotus.

How to recognize the scammers

You know how you can immediately recognize dermarolling scammers? They sell their own “miracle serums” instead of clinically proven vitamin creams and ointments. Vitamin creams are expensive. They are made in pharmaceutical companies and sold in pharmacies. They have proven themselves in countless medical studies and conform to strict quality requirements. Such vitamins are expensive and not much money can be made with them, hence the need to sell self-produced “serums” that cost nearly nothing to produce and can be sold at a huge profit margin. The most expensive part is the bottle and the cost of sending. Stay far away from those peddling their own serums, potions, herbal extracts and essential oil mixtures. More on how to recognize dermarolling scammers.

Scammers are recognized by how much they spam on forums and on how many “spammy” sites link to them. We do not post on forums. We do not advertize. We do not sell magical miracle lotions that cost half a dollar to make. If you want bigger breasts, don’t try dermarolling – it’s a waste of time.

This picture is from March 2011, after five months of needling. The customer is very happy with the results and posted them originally on our forum.

Dermarolling before and after pictures – 2

This photo is taken before microneedling, but after acid peels that had no significant result. The photo is taken under halogen illumination inside a bedroom.

And this photo is taken one and a half year later, in September 2010, outside in a sunny garden. The photo was taken six weeks after her last needling.

She has needled her stretch marks every 4-6 weeks for one and half years and she will continue. She has used a 1.5 mm dermaroller and the single needle, topical vit. C and Infadolan. She densely needled the stretch marks from different angles, to various depths up to 2 mm with quite some pinpoint bleeding.  No other treatment was employed. Stretch marks are still there but the overall improvement is amazing. The stretch marks tanned for the first time since they had formed. (The straight red lines are caused by swimsuit pants). The photos are not manipulated in any way.

Dermarolling before and after pictures – 3

This customer has her own blog.

This picture is from her blog. She bought our dermarolling products. “Sarah and John Vaughter” can be made out on the instructions:

This is a “before” picture:

This is a picture after three rolling sessions and two agressive single-needlings:

Such improvement usually takes more needling sessions. Click on the picture for an enlargement.

Dermarolling before and after pictures – 4

The  next customer’s photos are of a vaccination scar, treated with the single needle. The scar is 35 years old.

The same vaccination scar immediately after needling with the single needle:

And here is the same vaccination scar after four needlings, one months apart. The photo is taken five weeks after the last needling.  The hardened collagen scar tissue is mostly gone and the scar tanned for the first time since it had formed. She has used the single needle, topical vit. C and Infadolan.  The scar is much less visible now.  No other treatment was employed.

The middle photo was taken inside, the others outside in full summer light.

You can use single needling to improve both atrophic and hypertrophic scars, stretch marks, surgical scars (including liposuction, breast augmentation and tummy tuck scars), scars resulting from accidents including burn scars, acne scars, etcetera. You should not use it on keloid scars.

You can also improve individual wrinkles, especially the ones between the eyebrows and on the forehead.

The needle has to be very thin with a long taper. Our single needles are custom made according to our own design.

The “stretchmarked” skin is usually thinned both in the epidermis and the dermis (skin layers). Stretch marks/scars usually have abundant collagen in them but that collagen is in the form of a scar – the collagen layout is different from that in normal skin and the elastin fibers are abnormal as well.

Pricking the stretch marks densely with a single needle will crush the hardened collagen bundles and that should smoothe the texture of the stretch marks and make them less bright and shiny. With repeated needling, the indented scars fill up a little. Although the scar will never completely disappear.

If you are lucky, the repeated micro injuries caused by pricking the skin will make the stretch marks heal with a better collagen layout and a fiber configuration that is a little more “normal skin”-like. Old scars usually have poor blood supply. Needling often triggers angiogenesis – the growth of new blood vessels. Needling can also induce melanocyte production and that will enable the stretch marks to tan or partially tan. All this is individual, so we can’t give hard guarantees.

If your stretch marks are very shallow (unfortunately, most of them are not), they could even disappear entirely but so far, no current method can totally remove deep stretch marks. All we can do is improve them over time. Remember – there are no silver bullets or magical solutions. All real improvement takes time, effort and the endurance of some pain.

Dermarolling before and after pictures – 5

This customer tried to improve her skin texture – successfully.

Before (Sep. 12, 2011) and after dermarolling (Jan 14, 2012).

WHAT IS CELLULITE

Cellulite is caused by the unevenness of a layer of fat just beneath the skin. Our skin consists of the epidermis, the dermis and subcutaneous layer. Then comes muscle and finally bone. The subcutaneous layer consists largely of fat. When globular fat (“fat droplets”) from the subcutaneous layer pushes upwards against the dermis, it will cause bumpy, uneven skin. Women’s thighs and buttocks are most prone to this protrusion of fat deposits. The cause of the unevenness is the fact that our skin is anchored to the muscles or bones by fibrous bands called septae – otherwise the skin would not be held into place. Where this band is attached to the skin, the skin is puckered or sags around it. Like a button on a pillow. These septae are criss-crossed and evenly distributed in a man’s skin whereas women tend to have them attached in vertical bundles. Apart from keeping the skin in its place, these fibers also separate compartments containing fat cells. With cellulite, the fat bulges out from these compartments and this unevenness has no other way to go than the surface of the skin. This pattern of fat storage is completely normal and even very thin women have it – albeit less visible. Fat makes skin look good. Yes, our skin would look quite bad without underlying fat. But as soon as the fat directly underneath the skin is not completely even it will become a skin problem – a purely cosmetic problem. In some women, the appearance of cellulite is greatly accentuated by sagging of the skin especially after big changes in weight. In such cases, a thigh- or bum lift will smooth the skin out.

HOW TO AVOID CELLULITE

Be born a male Men almost never suffer from cellulite. Some men who take female hormones against prostate cancer etc. or men with low androgen levels develop cellulite. This shows that female hormones play a role in the development of cellulite.

Become a (female) professional body builder Female body builders have an extremely low body fat percentage so there is nothing to dimple. You might lose your periods, your breasts will “melt away” (breasts are full of fat) and you’ll grow a moustache from the steroids but your cellulite will likely disappear :-)

HOW TO MAKE CELLULITE LOOK BETTER

Thicken your skin with a dermaroller that reaches the dermis The reason behind this is that a thicker dermis might make it harder for the fat to protrude, or at least the thickened skin will make the dimples less visible. Do not expect any dramatic improvements though.

Use a cream with Retinoids This advice is based on the hypothesis that fat protrusion into the dermis is caused by a weakened dermis.  Vitamin A creams work by increasing collagen production, making the skin thicker, making the dimpling less pronounced.

There have been studies that found that topical Retinol improves cellulite.

Retinoic acid (Tretinoin) is the most potent form of vitamin A but it is also the most irritating because it is acidic. I once applied it after rolling my face with a 0.2 mm dermaroller and my face had a burning sensation for hours. The skin on the body is less sensitive and you can apply Tretinoin right after dermarolling but try it first on a small area to test if you can handle the stinging. Overuse of Tretinoin will cause irritation and redness. We sell 0.025%, 0.05% and 0.1% Tretinoin cream. Do not apply Tretinoin if planning a pregnancy, pregnant or lactating.

Lose weight if you are overweight Cellulite is not caused by obesity.  Most lean women have cellulite whereas almost no fat men have it.  However, sometimes cellulite is made worse with the buildup of extra fat and losing it might improve the extent and depth of the dimpling. That “cottage cheese” will shrink!

Tone your muscles and skin There is no way that physical exercise can smooth out an uneven layer of fat, yet cellulite will likely look better on toned muscles and -skin. Massaging the skin will increase its blood flow and scrubbing will speed up skin turnover.

Avoid things that make the skin less elastic Don’t subject yourself to big weight fluctuations, don’t smoke and don’t suntan excessively.

OTHER METHODS TO IMPROVE CELLULITE

Endermology – combines suction and massage. It is approved for temporarily improving the appearance of cellulite. It works on the assumption that cellulite is cause by impaired circulation and water retention. However no significant differences in biochemistry, physiology or blood and/or lymph flow or structural organization of skin with and without cellulite have been demonstrated scientifically.  Endermology probably works by causing tissue swelling, lessening the depth of the dimples but as soon as the swelling subsides, so does the visual improvement.

If you want to try a temporary DIY improvement in cellulite appearance you can try to use a plunger. Use the type left in the picture. Gently work the skin. Massage movements should go from down to up. It might be easier wearing nylon panties. Do not use this method if you are prone to broken capillaries.

Creams – their efficacy was never confirmed by independent studies. Creams either do not work at all (most likely) or they do not work because they can’t get deep enough into the skin. In case of the latter, you can highly enhance the penetration of the cream by applying it and rolling it in with a dermaroller.

Liposuction – cannot fix cellulite and occasionally it can make it worse. Even a small canule can’t suck out the fat totally evenly. Liposuction is never totally regular and that’s why it is usually avoided to suck out the fat just underneath the skin – where the cellulite is.

A few people obtained reasonable results with the following three methods that heats the deeper skin layers. Unfortunately, cellulite is positioned very close to where the blood supply that nourishes the skin is. Damaging it causes skin necrosis or permanent pigment changes. There are cases when too aggressive a treatment resulted in surface irregularities and hypo-pigmentation. Select your practitioner carefully.

Thermage – uses radiofrequency to heat the dermis and subcutaneous tissue (while cooling the epidermis) to tighten existing collagen and stimulate the formation of new collagen.

Velashape/Velasmooth – combines near infrared light, radiofrequency and mechanical suction.

Triactive – combines near-infrared light with localized cooling, suction and mechanical massage.

Subcision – for those with few deep dimples.  It breaks the septae, the fibrous bonds that pull the skin downward with a tiny cutting needle under local anesthesia. Gives good results but occasionally can end up with skin puckering. This method is combined with volumizing injections to “plump up” the dimples.

Injections of own body fat – results are often inconsistent and the procedure is rather expensive – suitable for those with few deep dimples.

Mesotherapy – repeated injection of various substances.  The most commonly used is Phosphatidylcholine + Sodium deoxycholate (“Lipodissolve”).  This breaks down cell membranes. Some studies confirmed that this causes necrosis of fat cells by destroying their membranes and thus they reduce localized fat. They destroy membranes of other cells as well and must be used with caution as thorough safety studies are lacking.

UltraShape – Not yet FDA approved. Uses non-thermal ultrasound energy to break up the fat. Only time will tell.

Body wrapping – Nonsense, forget it. It temporarily dehydrates the skin and as soon as you re-hydrate, the effect is gone.

Cellasane – Also doesn’t work.

The fact that there are so many methods for cellulite improvement shows that no method is particularly effective.

Perhaps this will make you feel better: About 90% of women have cellulite and those who don’t often have an “apple” figure with excessive abdominal fat deposits – which is neither healthy nor attractive. Cellulite is a part of the normal female anatomy.

This is what Professor Robert A Schwartz, MD, MPH, Head of the Dermatology dept. of the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School says about Copper peptides:

“The copper-dependent lysyl oxidase (LO) plays a critical role in the biogenesis of connective tissue matrices by cross-linking the extracellular matrix proteins collagen and elastin. Levels of LO increase in many fibrotic diseases, while expression of the enzyme is decreased in certain diseases involving impaired copper metabolism.

Within the past decade, the gene encoding LO has been cloned, facilitating investigations of the regulation of expression of the enzyme in response to diverse stimuli and in numerous disease states. Transforming growth factor-beta, platelet-derived growth factor, angiotensin II, retinoic acid, fibroblast growth factor, altered serum conditions, and shear stress are among the effectors or conditions that regulate LO expression. Since the production of both collagen and elastin is reduced in aging skin and in skin exposed to ultraviolet light, copper peptides may be able to help produce new collagen and hence repair aged skin.”

This is how deep skin products such as Copper peptides are absorbed after dermarolling. This picture is from “Minimally Invasive Percutaneous Collagen Induction” by Desmond Fernandes – co-inventor of the Dermaroller – and it shows that creams put on the skin after dermarolling penetrate the papillary dermis. The black areas are Indian ink that has entered through the hole at the top, made by a dermaroller.

Let this picture also serve as a warning not to use makeup or sun screen lotion on your skin immediately after dermarolling – these products are not intended to be absorbed deeply into the skin!

We found the following paragraph in “Copper and the skin” by Jurij J. Hostynek and Howard I. Maibach, published in 2006 and at the time of writing available for a hefty $ 231.85 at Amazon.com:

So it is Cu(II)-tripeptide we’re looking for when buying Copper peptide cream. Other copper peptides are less effective. The full name of this Copper peptide is Glycyl-l-histidyl-l-lysine:copper(II).

So now we know that yes, there exist a Copper peptide that really works. You can read about exactly how Copper peptides work here: Second Generation Copper Peptides.

Update: A few months after writing this article, we decided to sell copper peptide facial masks for use after dermarolling / single-needling the face. Buy our copper peptide facial mask here.

This is a detail of the skin before the single-needle treatment. The stretchmarks were a little worse to begin with – she did some peels in attempt to improve them but real improvement came only after treatment with the custom-made single needle we sell in our web store.

And this is is after treatment with our dermaroller and the special 0.25 mm diameter single needle:

She needled just the stretchmarks, pricking by hand, with the special 0.25 mm single needles we sell in our web store. The idea is to move like a sewing machine with the needle over just the white stretchmarks, going about 2 mm deep. Do not use a tattoo machine – it goes way too fast, loses power when down-regulated and you can easily make the scar worse. Plastic surgeon Dr. Des Fernandez, inventor of the dermaroller, said:

“However, we have to realize that if one did the deeper needling at the density of a tattoo, then the skin would be scarificed, and sure one would get a lot of collagen (in the form of scar tissue) and not a restoration of the complex elastin and collagen network which we aim to achieve with needling. However, deeper scars need greater penetration with the needle…  …Even if the extra needling is done by hand with a single needle, this is well worthwhile doing”.

Neither use an ordinary tatoo needle – their diameter is 0.35 mm, which is too large and causes more scar tissue to appear. Using a single needle is a laborious process but you can do it bit by bit, whenever you have some time left. The stretchmarks have become much darker and are much less visible. She will proceed dermarolling this area and after one more year, the stretchmarks will look even better.

A dermaroller is a skin needling device with many small surgical needles. Dermarollers come in needle lengths between 0.13 and 3 mm. The needle diameter (thickness) is approximately 0.25 mm at their base.

The dermarolling principle

Dermarolling remolds the skin by creating thousands of microscopic channels through the skin, increasing the formation of new tissue by activating the body’s wound healing cascade (hemostasis-inflammation-proliferation-tissue remodeling). The micro-channeling causes the release of growth factors that promote scar-less healing and the deposition of normal woven collagen rather than scar collagen. The fibroblasts are responsible for collagen production. The exact mechanism how this happens is complex and not yet completely understood. New collagen and elastin forms. In one study, twenty blinded biopsies taken from 10 different patients from various parts of their body demonstrated an average increase in new fibers of 206%, in one biopsy a 1000% increase was recorded.

What microneedling can do for you and what needle length do you need?

Enhance the penetration of skin care or hair growth products: Maximum 0.3 mm needle length on the face and 0.5 mm on skin on the rest of the body. Our skin – a protective organ – is almost unpermeable. Dermarolling temporarily enables the absorption of skin care products into the skin.

Fine wrinkles: 1 to 1.5 mm needle length. This is a relatively minor procedure and can be done safely at home, provided you disinfect properly. Dermarolling is a safe alternative for people with skin too thin to have laser treatment.

Individual deep wrinkles: Glabella wrinkles (between the eyebrows) and deep forehead wrinkles: Use our single needle instrument.

Loose skin: 1.5 mm. You can improve loose skin anywhere on the body including the neck, the décolleté, the back of the hands, arms, abdomen, thighs etc. In the early stages of skin laxity, it can postpone or even replace a facelift. Sensitive areas with thin skin such as the neck need only 0.5 mm.

Sun damaged or aging skin: 1.0 to 1,5 mm.

Uneven pigmentation or acne spots: 0.5 mm to 1.0 mm (not to be used on moles!).

Scars: All scar treatment requires a dermaroller with 1.5 mm needles and benefit greatly from our single needle instrument to locally crush the scar tissue deeper and with a greater prick density. Look at some single needle results.

Stretchmarks:  Become less indented, less wide and the original skin color may be partially restored.

Acne scarring: Become less indented.

With deep acne scars, 1.5 mm is often not enough and 2.5 mm is required, but this is impossible to do safely at home with a dermaroller. Therefore, we supply a single needle of the right specifications (0.25 mm diameter, long taper, gamma-sterilized) to be used for home needling.

Surgical or atrophic scars: (Not keloid scars) - will soften and the original skin color may be partially restored.

Hypertrophic burn scars: Hypertrophic or burn scars (not keloids): A 1.5 or 2 mm narrow 3-liner or 1-liner. Combine it with pressure massage: Apply pressure with your fingers onto the scar for approximately 20 seconds, spot for spot. Repeat daily. Perform the pressure massage also immediately after needling or dermarolling the scar.

Dermarolling instructions

0.20 or 0.25 mm long needles:

Put the skin care product on your skin, then roll it in with the dermaroller. Alternatively, you can first roll the skin and then apply the skin care product.

0.5 mm and above:

Take a shower or wash the to-be-rolled area.
Wipe the rolling environment (table etc) with alcohol.
Wipe the skin and your hands with disinfecting alcohol. Alcohol will evapo-rate in a few minutes.
If you like, apply an ice-pack or numbing cream. Remove the numbing cream with alcohol before rolling.
When using ice-packs, clean them with alcohol before applying.
When rolling, stretch the skin by pulling it with your other hand – it will make needle penetration much easier.

Roll in a star pattern: maximum five times horizontally, 5 times vertically, 5 times diagonally. Roll the dermaroller around five times in each direction. Back and forth equals two rolls. Lift the dermaroller slightly or change the angle of rolling and move back to the beginning. This ensures that you will not hit the same prick channel. Use medium pressure – but very light pressure around your eyes, especially with needles longer than 0.5 mm!

Try to spread the pricks evenly. You could first only roll the entire skin area horizontally, when you’ve covered all skin that you want to treat, you roll vertically, and finally diagonally (across). Use whatever technique you are comfortable with, as long as it spreads the number of pricks per sq. inch / cm2 more or less evenly.

Dermarolling after-care

If you roll with 0.5 mm needles or shorter, no special after care is needed.

If you roll with needles longer than 0.5 mm, the skin will turn red (like sunburn), sensitive and might get slightly swollen for several hours. Keep the area moist. For the first couple of days, the best choice is to cover the area with a very thin layer of an occlusive ointment that contains vit. A. and D.  Do not expose the rolled areas to the sun for several days and thereafter, use a sunscreen lotion with a high protective factor. Wait two or three days with applying makeup as well.

The rolled area might start “peeling” after some days. Don’t pick at the loose skin.
Collagen production is a very slow process and it can’t be rushed. Do not expect miracles too soon. It can take up to 10 months to get substantial results.

Skin product absorption with a dermaroller

How to clean a dermaroller

Wash the dermaroller in warm water and dishwashing liquid, taking care not to damage the needles. Then soak it in disinfecting alcohol for 20 minutes. Discard the alcohol. Air- dry. Put back into container. Keep the container clean with hot water but do not use any cloth or sponge to clean it since those are full of bacteria.

How often to roll the skin?

• 0.2 or 0.25 mm long needles can be used every second day on the same skin area.

• 0.5 mm long needles can be used once or twice per week on the same skin area.

• 1 mm can be used every two weeks on the same skin area.

• 1.5 mm can only be used once every three to four weeks on the same skin area.

• 2.0 mm can only be used once every five weeks on the same skin area, and only if you have the knowledge to judge which part of the skin is thick enough to safely use this needle length.

Dermarolling in detail

Read the detailed dermarolling instructions that come with our microneedling products.

If you have questions that are not answered there or here, please ask them on our dermarolling forum. (After using the search function to see whether your question has already been answered.)

Acne scars dermarolling – before & after:

Pigmentation dermarolling – before & after:

Dermarolling works really well against skin pigmentation spots.

Stretchmarks dermarolling – before & after:

Stretch marks become flatter and lose some their contrast after dermarolling.

Download our PDF with detailed dermarolling instructions

The principle of dermarolling – how dermarolling works – is new collagen and elastin formation. When you roll the skin, the many tiny holes in the skin cause micro-inflammation, which causes new collagen to form. This regenerative collagen “smoothes over” the scar tissue. Dermarolling can be used to strongly improve:

• Wrinkles
• Saggy skin
• Acne scars
• Stretchmarks
• Sun damaged skin
• Pigmentation spots
• Surgical- and other scars

Dermarolling also highly enhances the penetration of skin care products or hair growth stimulants into the skin.

If you’re interested in reading more about dermarolling, read our dermaroller test / review.

Visit our microneedling store