Beauty Dummy | We Try Cosmetic Acupuncture
By Pip Jarvis – 05 Jul 2016
Read the full article on Urbanlist here.
If someone had told 10-years-ago-me that I would one day willingly lie on my back and have 20 needles stuck in my face, Pip Jr would have given them serious stink eye. But then ageing happened. So current-day-me looked into something called cosmetic acupuncture in the hope it would delay the arrival of 10-years-from-now-me. Confused? Me too. Let’s work through this.
Cosmetic Acupuncture is not a new treatment, but it’s still pretty niche in this country—it’s a little bit like the skin needling treatments in techy clinics, where micro-needles are used to penetrate the skin and create a wound response, stimulating the production of collagen for a firmer face and fewer wrinkles. However, cosmetic acupuncture has its foundations in Chinese medicine, so the needles penetrate deeper into the skin than other collagen induction techniques, and there is no downtime.
And it doesn’t hurt a jot. Promise.
What Does It Treat?
As well as being an excellent, 100% natural anti-ageing option (both preemptive and reparative), cosmetic acupuncture can help with pigmentation and uneven skintone, has incredible results for acne, reduces flushing, and increases the skin’s ability to retain moisture by approximately eleventy-million percent*.
My New Best Friend
I visited the divine Dr Vivian Tam from Cosmetic Acupuncture Melbourne at her Armadale studio to discuss my #skingoals. While Vivian promised increased hydration and general radiance from just one to two treatments, I decided to go all out with a course of six weekly treatments to tackle my natural redness, improve my skintone, and kick some collagen-inducing butt. (It takes around six weeks to see a marked improvement in firmness.)
Stick It To Me
The process was actually really relaxing. The needles are ultra, ultra fine, and I only felt a twinge in the final week or two, once my skin was becoming denser. Each Thursday, Vivian would cleanse my face of makeup, do her pricky thing, then leave me for 20 minutes to snooze/plan my grocery list. I was a bit concerned at first when my face would ping out the odd needle at around the 10-minute mark, but Vivian assured me this was a good thing. It simply meant the body was rejecting the foreign object (ie, triggering that desirable ‘wound’ response). Well played, face.**
The Results
It only took two treatments for me to become hooked. I hadn’t even realised how dry and crepey my skin was until my friends starting commenting on how gloriously smooth and dewy it looked after a fortnight. Yes, ladies—I was lit from within. After the fourth treatment, I saw a marked improvement in my colour. Less red, more pinky-beige. By the end of six weeks, my skin definitely looked and felt firmer.
I am now into the maintenance phase and plan to get pricked once a month—and this is saying something, as I’m usually rubbish at sticking to any kind of regime, especially if it involves me schlepping an hour on PT.
Want to try cosmetic acupuncture for yourself? Check out Cosmetic Acupuncture Melbourne on their website here.
*My opinion. Not Vivian’s. ** My skin is a big wuss, so I got the odd bruise. Apparently one in 500 people bruise. Yes, I am that person.
Photo credit: Neiyo Sun for The Urban List