Is it safe for a beauty salon to carry out a microneedling or dermarolling procedure?

The idea of Micro-needling is to create controlled injury that triggers repair and collagen remodeling. That said, there will be injury to the surface of the skin. The severity depends on the extend and depth of penetration. If not done properly, you are risking infection, scarring and other complications such as hyper-pigmentation. Even in the best of hand, such complications can still occur, and knowing how to minimise & treating them are important.

I cannot imagine how a non-medical set-up could understand these issues and manage them.

The result of micro-needling is still not fully established yet although there are some reports showing good result while others did not. For acne scar to improve, you must reach a relatively deep depth to trigger sufficient repair. You cannot achieve that without proper anesthesia and a correct treatment. As a result, the Singapore Medical Council still does not approve this treatment to be done in Singapore. You are putting yourself as risk for very little potential benefits. You might as well save up the money for a proper treatment down the road.

Regards,

Elias

Microneedling is relatively safe especially if not done too deep (DIY or salons usually do not offer very deep depths). It is a simple procedure, so salons that are more reputable should have their staff trained properly for this procedure if they offer it.

Simply needling the scars will have very little results for most sunken scars though. Some doctors use microneedling RF that creates coagulation zones with microneedles to achieve better results. I use such a device in my clinic as well, but even my gentlest resurfacing laser achieves more result than the microneedle RF device - proven with clinical studies. Microneedling without RF would be even less useful than that.

If you are on a budget, you may end up wasting more money on a procedure that has little benefit compared to spending on proper medical procedures instead. You can always submit a treatment quote here to find out the prices of different procedures and clinics.

Hope this helps!