Reviews you can trust, from real people like you.
How it works
- Our highly-trained Review Moderation team evaluates all reviews before they're published to ensure they're written by people like you and not a member of a doctor's office.
- This multi-step process takes up to 24 hours from review submission to publication.
- Doctors can't pay to have reviews removed or hidden.
- Reviews are only removed at the reviewer's request or if they violate our Terms of Service.
If you have questions or believe we should re-evaluate a published review, let us know.
Sort by:
*Treatment results may vary
Skin needling
Added pics back to review
First of all, let me begin by saying that I have a...
First of all, let me begin by saying that I have a pretty bad skin picking habit. I am 30 years old now and have been doing it for years. It has been a vicious cycle of "pick, figure out ways to cover it up, panic about the scars that I may have been created, try to treat the scars".... There have been times when I have thought to myself "there is no way my skin will ever recover from this..... i am marred for life" HOWEVER, I now have some hope with microneedling.
I have done 3 Skin Pen treatments over the past year.... the first time I went, I asked that they only do my forehead because I was absolutely terrified that the procedure would make my skin worse, and I wanted to see how I would respond to it first. Also, my forehead was the WORST part of my face - i felt like I had to always hide behind my bangs. There was this one area about my area that I picked so badly... it would heal and leave this sort of raised area (not a keloid or anything, but just slightly raised and the size of like a quarter, right above my eyebrow) Because of its location, it looked like I constantly had a slight crease on my forehead between my brows. I hated it and would always try to pick at it thinking that maaaaybe I could get it to flatten it out (I know, I am crazy.) I don't know how to explain it other than "i just looked rough"...
Anyway, so the first session, I did forehead only. This was in May The technician numbed the area and after about 20 mins once I was numbed, she went over the area for about 15 minutes. I did feel some slight pricking but it wasn't anything I couldn't tolerate. After years of picking, you get used to the pain. Now I want to mention that this was a year ago, so any close up pics I might've had, I probably deleted. I do apologize for that. I have made an effort to zoom in on some old pics so you can see the improvement. The first pic was taken in February 2014 - you can see how rough my forehead looks. I did the skinpen treatment (forehead only) in April of 2014. The second and third pics were taken in late May 2014, so you can see slight improvement. Not perfect, no, but an improvement, and that forehead line i had been battling was finally flattening out. (In the pic with the sunglasses, I was actually out on the beach, so that pic was taken in bright sunlight.)
Ok, so the forehead was looking better and better over time, and I was actually starting to wear my bangs back up again. See July pics!
HOWEVER, I then suddenly had some weird breakouts on my cheeks around that time.. really deep painful ones that I of course picked at. Once I felt like they were kind of healing over, I went back for another skinpen in late July - this time for my entire face. One note of advice: I would not recommend you do skin pen if you have any deep bumps/cysts. In my case, I thought that the needles would help break up any acne, but really it just irritated them. Now, it could be that whatever topical they applied after my treatment was geared towards scarring rather than acne, but I'm not sure. I think it's better to wait until it has healed over, though, just to be on the safe side. I found that the skin pen just irritated my existing break out and almost pushed some clogged pores deeper into my skin. I do not think I have any close up pics of my cheeks from that time bc I felt like I looked like a monster - I was so hard on myself. The skin pen treatment didn't really help too much for my cheeks at the time - again, i had some weird breakouts and i probably shouldn't have done it, but it did seem to further improve my forehead in my opinion. (Finally the one "ugly" area of skin was the new "pretty" and clear area of skin)
I did a 3rd skinpen treatment in late September (Sept 26th i think), after the breakouts on the cheeks had healed - since they left some scarring and uneven texture, sI was hoping to smooth those areas out for good. My cheeks were never my biggest issue, so I guess I didn't really think to take pics... However, I'll see what I can find and update later. I did notice an improvement all around, though, and was receiving compliments from friends and family. I do believe the skin pen did help!!!!
Ok so where am I now? Well, because I'm slightly crazy and don't learn my lessons, I may or may not have managed to mess up my forehead again LOL. I had one night where I was just bored and anxious and mindlessly went at it. (I laugh because you know what? everything is fixable and treatable/improvable... we all mess up and no one is perfect - all we can do is either accept our situation and/or work to improve it)... So ok, here I am, messed up forehead again (will post pics later), and I am going in for a skinpen again on Monday 4/27. I know the technician will be mad at me for my d*mn idle hands lol. She will probably be like "I THOUGHT I FIXED THIS ALREADY" lol. I will let you all know how that goes.
Bottom line: I do recommend the skin pen !!!! I would just wait until after any active breakouts have healed and BE PATIENT. Be good to yourself! Often times, we don't even notice scars on others, or when we do notice them, it is because we are subconsciously comparing our skin to theirs. Life is too short to stress so much and hate ourselves over a few flaws... please google "Butterfly Child", and you will feel blessed about your current skin situation. It is okay to want to improve ourselves, but even if you don't/can't, remember there is always way worse.
Please feel free to post any questions, and I will do my best to update!
I have done 3 Skin Pen treatments over the past year.... the first time I went, I asked that they only do my forehead because I was absolutely terrified that the procedure would make my skin worse, and I wanted to see how I would respond to it first. Also, my forehead was the WORST part of my face - i felt like I had to always hide behind my bangs. There was this one area about my area that I picked so badly... it would heal and leave this sort of raised area (not a keloid or anything, but just slightly raised and the size of like a quarter, right above my eyebrow) Because of its location, it looked like I constantly had a slight crease on my forehead between my brows. I hated it and would always try to pick at it thinking that maaaaybe I could get it to flatten it out (I know, I am crazy.) I don't know how to explain it other than "i just looked rough"...
Anyway, so the first session, I did forehead only. This was in May The technician numbed the area and after about 20 mins once I was numbed, she went over the area for about 15 minutes. I did feel some slight pricking but it wasn't anything I couldn't tolerate. After years of picking, you get used to the pain. Now I want to mention that this was a year ago, so any close up pics I might've had, I probably deleted. I do apologize for that. I have made an effort to zoom in on some old pics so you can see the improvement. The first pic was taken in February 2014 - you can see how rough my forehead looks. I did the skinpen treatment (forehead only) in April of 2014. The second and third pics were taken in late May 2014, so you can see slight improvement. Not perfect, no, but an improvement, and that forehead line i had been battling was finally flattening out. (In the pic with the sunglasses, I was actually out on the beach, so that pic was taken in bright sunlight.)
Ok, so the forehead was looking better and better over time, and I was actually starting to wear my bangs back up again. See July pics!
HOWEVER, I then suddenly had some weird breakouts on my cheeks around that time.. really deep painful ones that I of course picked at. Once I felt like they were kind of healing over, I went back for another skinpen in late July - this time for my entire face. One note of advice: I would not recommend you do skin pen if you have any deep bumps/cysts. In my case, I thought that the needles would help break up any acne, but really it just irritated them. Now, it could be that whatever topical they applied after my treatment was geared towards scarring rather than acne, but I'm not sure. I think it's better to wait until it has healed over, though, just to be on the safe side. I found that the skin pen just irritated my existing break out and almost pushed some clogged pores deeper into my skin. I do not think I have any close up pics of my cheeks from that time bc I felt like I looked like a monster - I was so hard on myself. The skin pen treatment didn't really help too much for my cheeks at the time - again, i had some weird breakouts and i probably shouldn't have done it, but it did seem to further improve my forehead in my opinion. (Finally the one "ugly" area of skin was the new "pretty" and clear area of skin)
I did a 3rd skinpen treatment in late September (Sept 26th i think), after the breakouts on the cheeks had healed - since they left some scarring and uneven texture, sI was hoping to smooth those areas out for good. My cheeks were never my biggest issue, so I guess I didn't really think to take pics... However, I'll see what I can find and update later. I did notice an improvement all around, though, and was receiving compliments from friends and family. I do believe the skin pen did help!!!!
Ok so where am I now? Well, because I'm slightly crazy and don't learn my lessons, I may or may not have managed to mess up my forehead again LOL. I had one night where I was just bored and anxious and mindlessly went at it. (I laugh because you know what? everything is fixable and treatable/improvable... we all mess up and no one is perfect - all we can do is either accept our situation and/or work to improve it)... So ok, here I am, messed up forehead again (will post pics later), and I am going in for a skinpen again on Monday 4/27. I know the technician will be mad at me for my d*mn idle hands lol. She will probably be like "I THOUGHT I FIXED THIS ALREADY" lol. I will let you all know how that goes.
Bottom line: I do recommend the skin pen !!!! I would just wait until after any active breakouts have healed and BE PATIENT. Be good to yourself! Often times, we don't even notice scars on others, or when we do notice them, it is because we are subconsciously comparing our skin to theirs. Life is too short to stress so much and hate ourselves over a few flaws... please google "Butterfly Child", and you will feel blessed about your current skin situation. It is okay to want to improve ourselves, but even if you don't/can't, remember there is always way worse.
Please feel free to post any questions, and I will do my best to update!
Provider Review
