Beauty Notes Daily

By Jenny DickinsonAs Twitter followers will know (to be one of them, find us on @ellebeautyteam), despite a bout of last-minute nerves, I went ahead with my first Dermaroller treatment on Friday. I’d been umming and ahhing for ages – rejuvenated skin vs my fear of needles (or any pain for that matter); it was a tough call.My skin history is this: Spot-free, normal skin in my mid to late-teens, followed swiftly and unceremoniously by the arrival of an oily, blemish-prone T-zone and dry, patchy skin everywhere else in my early 20s. Now 31, I’m finally beginning to get the spots under control, but a decade of acne has left me with scarring I’m desperate to erase.I met Dr Masani of The Mayfair Practice a few months ago and tried not to be too offended when he drew attention to the (I thought reasonably well-covered) scarring on my face and told me that he could help me get rid of it. He suggested Dermaroller, otherwise known as ‘micro-medical skin-needling’, which is meant to stimulate your skin into repairing itself naturally by producing collagen.The thought of so many needles and the immediate after-effects – ‘You’ll look as though you have sunburn,’ Dr Masani’s assistant tells me – had me stalling, but when some research revealed that Dermaroller counts Angelina Jolie as a fan, I booked myself in for the Friday before Halloween, figuring that if it all went wrong at least I wouldn’t need a costume.Which brings us to last Friday; needle day. I arrive at the North Audley St practice and am handed the usual patient forms to complete. When I get to the section about whether I would like to donate my organs in the event of a fatality, I can’t hide the resulting panic. A nurse comes over to prise the clipboard from my frozen hands, ‘Don’t worry, that bit doesn’t apply to you.’ Hmmm.We retire to a side room, where the nurse applies a numbing cream to my face (I am also asked whether I’d like to take a couple of Ibuprofen, but I come over all British and say I don’t need them), then I’m left for an hour while the cream takes effect. I entertain wild notions about a hitherto undiscovered resilience to analgesics and try not to think of Freddie Kruger.Sixty long minutes later, I enter Dr Masani’s office. He takes ‘before’ pictures of my skin (the first and last time I will ever allow this), highlighting the ‘problem’ areas, and waxes lyrical about what else he could do to improve my face. The list seems endless. I feel ashamed and yet grateful, like a strange new S&M fetish.The treatment begins. Dr Masani uses a little wheel inlaid with micro needles and rolls it vigorously back and forth across my skin. It’s… not hideous. Honestly, not too bad at all. Similar to getting a tattoo (I have two), when the needle drags repeatedly over the same patch of skin. Dr Masani asks how painful I’m finding it, on a scale of one to 10. ‘Three,’ I reply. Optimistically as it turns out. For when the wheel runs over the bonier areas of my face, that pain ratchets up to a four. And as the numbness wears off, I’m clutching my palms into fists as he works over the bony areas under my eye sockets. Six! Twenty minutes, though, and we’re done. The nurse applies Chiroxy (an oxgyenating cream) and then offers me a mirror. I brace myself.It could be a lot worse. I’m red, sure, but in my mind I’d built it up to something akin to 3rd-degree burns, and that’s definitely not the case. I think I look like someone who’s just been out in the cold for a 10k run. Not attractive, but not freakish, either. What bothers me more is how tight my skin feels – in fact, it’s the tightness that means I can’t forget what I’ve done to my face all evening long, even though the clinic apply a special covering make-up to my skin, Lycogel, before I head out into the evening.The next day, I go out to the shops without any of the Lycogel on, and not one child points at me and screams. The tightness is much less, and most of the time I forget I’ve had anything done. But then I touch my dry face and remember, I’m a human pin cushion.It’s three days later now. The redness has disappeared altogether. My skin is still very dry, cracking like Sicilian plaster, but I think that has something to do with running 13 miles in the pouring rain yesterday. Glutton for punishment doesn’t even cover it.It’s going to be a few weeks before I know whether all this was worth it, but I’m feeling hopeful. I may never get Brad, but here’s hoping I’m one step closer to having Angelina’s skin.The Mayfair Practice 020 7408 1164 www.mayfairpractice.com