The word “downtime” is mostly associated with chemical peels or plastic surgery, where after a procedure you need to spend some time in your house recovering. You might have stitches or bandages from plastic surgery or skin coming off in strips from a deep chemical peel. But what is the downtime like from using a dermaroller?

There’s barely any! Using a dermaroller has almost no downtime–you might experience skin redness for up to 12 hours if you’re using a 1.5mm roller, but you’re definitely not going to have to take a long weekend from work or school to use your dermaroller. I usually use my dermaroller in the evening, and by morning the redness is fully gone from my skin. So there’s no traditional downtime to dermarolling like there would be for a more extreme medispa treatment.

For 1-2 days after using a dermaroller, your skin may actually look plumper and younger than usual! This is the result of a tiny amount of residual swelling as your skin is healing itself–because it is all over, it just looks like fresh, full skin. Your pores are less visible and fine lines recede because your skin is slightly puffed up. This is honestly usually the best that my skin looks all month, and if I have a wedding to go to I’ll usually dermaroll three days before and then use a sheet mask every day to keep that plumped-up, hydrated look going til the event.

Celavi 12-pack of sheet masks*

That doesn’t mean you can use a 1.5mm dermaroller every day, though. Even though you’re not hiding your face from the world, you do need to wait a certain amount of time between each use, depending on your needle length.

For a .25mm dermaroller, you can use it every day.

For a .5mm dermaroller, you need to wait a minimum of 1-2 days before using it again (so, using it once every other or every third day).

For a 1.0mm dermaroller, you need to wait a minimum of one week between uses (so, use it Monday, then the following Monday.)

For a 1.5 mm dermaroller, you should use it once a month. This needle length reaches into the next layer of your skin and the recovery time is  necessary.

(I don’t really recommend 2.0mm, but if you feel that you must use one, plan on using it every 6-8 weeks. I really believe that more treatments with a shorter needle will get you better results, though.)