Dermatologist Debriefs

Don’t use a home needle roller before listening to this

• Stefanie Williams

Share episode

Ever wondered why professional skin needling costs so much more than buying a roller online? 

Dr Stefanie cuts through confusion by explaining the crucial distinctions between clinic and home needling. 

Professional needling penetrates the dermis, creating thousands of controlled microinjuries that trigger a comprehensive healing cascade. This medical-grade process delivers genuine skin regeneration, improving texture, reducing scars, minimizing pores, and softening wrinkles.

Home rollers serve a valuable but different purpose. By creating shallow penetration through your skin's protective barrier, they significantly enhance absorption of skincare products that would otherwise struggle to penetrate.  Dr Stefanie also shares critical hygiene advice as well as advice on how frequently you should replace your rollers. 

Listen now to find out more about which approach aligns with your skincare journey.

Speaker 1:

Dermatologist debriefs. Join no-nonsense dermatologist Dr Stephanie Williams as she debunks myths and shares her professional insights, separating facts from fiction in just a few minutes speak about the difference between medical needling in a clinic and home needle rollers.

Speaker 2:

So one of the main differences between clinic needling devices and home needling devices is the needle length and with that, the penetration depth into the skin, and I'll come back and explain the biological impacts of that in a minute. But essentially, medical needling uses needles of 1.5 to 3 millimeter length and I don't like calling it micro needling, by the way, as it really confuses it with home needling while home needle rollers have a length of needles of typically 0.2 to maximum 0.5 millimeter, and because of this difference in needle lengths they've got a fundamentally different mechanism of action and what actually happens in our skin after we've used them and, with that, what we should use them for. So it's not that one is necessarily better than the other. It's simply that they are completely different treatments and you have to decide what you want to achieve in order to make a decision whether, in clinic, needling is the better option for you or whether a home needle roller might be a better option, and I will come back to that in a minute. But first let me mention how thick the different layers of our skin actually are, because then it will all start to make sense.

Speaker 2:

So the middle layer of our skin, the dermis, which is kind of like the backbone of our skin, this is where our collagen and elastin reside and this is also where we have blood vessels in our skin. So this is in contrast to the epidermis above, which does not have any blood vessels at all. So this dermis, the middle layer, is typically between one and four millimeter thick. So it makes sense then that professional medical needling in clinic, let's say with a 1.5 or two millimeter long needle, comfortably reaches all the way down to the dermis, triggering true collagen stimulation via controlled microtrauma. And because the dermis contains tiny blood vessels, medical needling down to the dermis induces bleeding as a visual marker of dermal penetration, which is really important to remember. So no bleeding means that the dermis hasn't been reached, and without reaching the dermis we will not get the best collagen response. But with proper medical needling down to the dermis, where we cause tens of thousands of tiny microtraumas, and every single one of those will activate the three-phase wound healing response, that way we do properly stimulate collagen production and collagen remodeling. And that's why medical needling helps regenerate the skin, improve skin texture, reduce pore size, even scarring, and reduces lines and wrinkles, reduces lines and wrinkles. And just a quick reminder about those three phases of wound healing responses. So the phase one is the inflammatory phase, where we have immune cells clearing debris and increasing blood flow, followed by the proliferative phase, where fibroblasts generate new collagen and elastin and rebuild blood vessels. And, last but not least, the remodeling phase, where the collagen fibers reorganize into stronger, more aligned fibers over the next few months. And medical needling works even better if you infuse growth factors into the skin simultaneously, whether this is in the form of exosomes or growth factors derived from your own blood via PRP or exokine technology, and these growth factors will stimulate our fibroblasts even more to produce collagen.

Speaker 2:

In addition to the mechanical action of the medical needling, home needle rollers, on the other hand, are equipped with needles of 0.2 to maximum 0.5 mm length. So what they do is they breach the stratum corneum, which is the horny layer of the outer epidermis, to enhance topical product absorption, but they are lacking a significant dermal impact. That's not to say that home needle rollers don't have a role to play, because nature designed the stratum corneum to keep things out and it does that job really well. So to get active ingredients in from skincare is actually quite tricky. So home rolling can greatly enhance the penetration of actives from skincare. However, it does not activate a full wound hailing cascade or stimulate significant collagen synthesis. And you can see that simply because if there's no bleeding, you haven't reached the dermis as simple as that. So they have completely different mechanisms of action. So if you want collagen stimulation and skin regeneration, you will need to come to a clinic to get this done professionally.

Speaker 2:

Deeper microneedling also activates vascular endothelial growth factor, by the way, which aids the genesis of new blood vessels, which then supply the skin with more oxygen and nutrients. So that's another advantage. And, by the way, we are using an affecting numbing cream beforehand, because proper medical needling is not tolerable without adequate topical anesthesia. So don't kid yourself that you can do the same at home. However, if you do want to just enhance skincare penetration, by all means use a home roller. It's really good for that. So let me give you a few points of advice for when you're using your home needle roller.

Speaker 2:

Number one hygiene is of utmost importance, and I recommend that at the very least, you should spray a disinfectant, like a 70% isopropyl alcohol, after every single use onto the roller to prevent skin infections. So this is really the minimum hygiene requirement. Ideally, you should throw it away after each use and use a brand new one every time, like we do in clinic with medical needling. This would also be beneficial, actually, because needles are known to blunt very rapidly, and that's also why we use a new needle cartridge in clinic after every single treatment. And even when I do cosmetic injectables like fillers or skin boosters, I never use a needle for more than, let's say, 10 skin penetrations at the very most, because needles blunt really quickly, and so if you imagine a home needle roller which is rolled back and forth over the skin, each of those tiny needles wrecks up hundreds of skin penetrations, which hugely blunts them in no time. So really you shouldn't just sterilize your roller after each use, but you should really throw it away, because blunted needles cause uneven trauma. They also have an even more reduced penetration depth because of skin elasticity and they have reduced efficiency. So it's basically an increased risk and a decreased result.

Speaker 2:

Another difference between home rolling devices and in clinic needling devices is the needle motion. So the electric needle pens we use in clinic have the needle cartridge oscillating vertically, and that's compared to the rolling motions of most home rollers. The former creates clean vertical cuts, whereas home rollers create more lateral micro tears from that angled needle entry and exit caused by the rolling motion. So the rolling kind of creates a sore tooth epidermal injury rather than a clean vertical column. Also, electric needle pens that we use in clinic create many more punctures per square centimeter of skin surface the exact number obviously depending on the device used, but it can be more than three or four hundred punctures per second, which, if you compare that to manual home rolling, is of course a huge difference.

Speaker 2:

So I hope I explained some of the differences between home and in clinic needling. Always consult your doctor if you suffer with active acne or rosacea or pigmentation concerns before starting any form of microneedling, whether that's an at-home device or a medical needling in clinic. In any case, I hope this was educational and if you have any other questions, please post them on one of our social media channels and I may answer them next week. Bye.