Does anyone needle with Environ products? Safety?
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Thu Feb 02, 2017 12:54 pm

I recently purchased my first roller (Environ Roll-Cit with teeny tiny baby needles of 0.1)

My skin is quite sensitive (IF I do the wrong thing or use the wrong product) so I thought before I got going it would be prudent to really do my research. I've been using Environ products for about a year now (though was a long term Osmosis retinaldehyde user prior) and am currently using C-Quence 3 with absolutely no irritation from it at all.

I was keen to start rolling for product penetration but read a post on Bare faced truth suggestion that only skin-native ingredients should be used post roll, linking a medical report in which several women got serious reactions and granulomas after a medical roll with a spa's vitamin C products (which I suspect was more likely to do with that product's other ingredients rather than the vitamin C in it.) I can't post a link because my post count is not high enough yet on EDS but I'm sure many of you have seen the post on BFT. Apparently there are increasing reports of these sorts of scary reactions as skin needling gets more popular. While I know Bare faced Truth are touting their own products, what they are saying about the dangers of rolling just anything into your skin makes sense and they are not the only ones to say it. There are some very questionable ingredients in skin care products and we should be very careful with what we roll in, even with short needle length just used for product penetration. However, according to Bare faced truth only high molecular hyaluronic acid and cytokines are safe which I think is probably a good idea for a medical roll but a bit extreme for general product penetration rolls which have shown excellent results with A,C and E.

However, Dr. Fernandes of Environ responded on this BFT post saying that the safety record with his needling/post rolling protocol was excellent having never heard of a case of allergic reaction or granuloma resulting from his products post roll. I do trust Dr. Fernandes and wonder if many of you use his products post roll? The thing is I see most of his rolls were done with ACE oil. I wonder how many have been performed with C-Quence and how safe this actually is with its longer and more complicated ingredient profile? I hate sounding like I doubt Dr. Des because I really don't but when you read these scary reports and warnings online it does make you wish to tread incredibly cautiously when you are as careful about your skin as I am! You don't want one wrong move to ruin all the good work!

I know the women who had the bad reactions in the report had further bad reactions to the products used on their faced when they had patch tests to ascertain the culprit. I don't know if this suggests that they were intolerant to the product to begin with and the whole horror could have been avoided by a patch test, or if an allergic response is far more likely to happen via topical application after it has happened via deep needling.

This makes me wonder, would it be best to needle on a patch test away from the face twice a week for the first six weeks and apply the products before taking the plunge all over the face? I don't know whether I'm being wildly paranoid here as Environ products ARE excellent (and clearly I have no issue with them) but you never know how you will react to anything when, essentially injected into the skin.

Looking forward to discussing!

free skin care · Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:00 pm

I was looking into using their products too for after needling but only just started. I read about the Anteage products too but they are "old news" now it seems. I just started needling.

Tue Feb 21, 2017 9:25 am

That is interesting Bugaboo. Will you update the thread on how you get on? I plan to do the same with Environ products. Still researching like mad! Smile

free skin care · Tue Feb 21, 2017 11:43 am

I will when I do, still haven't found the right products so it may be awhile.

Tue Feb 21, 2017 11:47 am

Are you in the USA? If so then I would use My Fawnie products post roll! Good, safe, clean products:

Peptide needle serum:
http://myfawnie.bigcartel.com/product/kinnianag-serum

Followed with ACE oil:
http://myfawnie.bigcartel.com/product/a-c-e-oil-for-dermarolling

Sadly she doesn't ship to my country but if I was in the US I would prefer to apply these post rolling as they are 'cleaner' ingredients wise compared to Environ. There are a few things in the Environ products I don't feel very safe about rolling into my skin.

free skin care · Tue Feb 21, 2017 12:12 pm

Wow, those are some beautiful products! Pure quality ingredients. I am in Canada.

Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:47 pm

Hi Bugaboo,

I thought I would drop in so we could revisit this. Did you start your needling with Environ products?

I'm a little nervous and still on the fence. I'm following a lot of skincare subs over on Reddit (where it seems to have all taken off since EDS and the SCT forum kinda went to sleep.) Needling is really falling out of favour amongst the crowd there. There is a lot of concern over increasing reports of allergic reactions and granulomas. Also, there is concern that needling builds the wrong type of collagen (type 1 instead of type 2 which is essentially scarring.) People are also reporting rolling scars from the CIT and serious irritation.

What concerns me the most is using Environ products after rolling. For example, look at this conversation on Researchgate started by Dr Des Fernandes:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Microneedling_and_allergic_granulomatous_reaction_We_have_to_ask_what_products_were_used_after_the_microneedling_Was_vitamin_A_and_C_applied

A medical professional answered with:
"As well as topically-added serums, it might be worth them checking for any signs of silicone in their biopsies. Silicone is applied to the outsides of needles and might contribute to retention of any particles or substances driven into the skin. AND silicone causes granulomas!

Now, Environ AVST products CONTAIN DIMETHICONE! A silicone. This concerns me enormously and I'm rather shocked that it would be included in a post roll product. Dr. Des claims he has seen no issues with granulomas in 19 years of practice when ACE oil was applied to the skin but Environ (or at least the reps) are recommending the application of all Environ products to the skin post needling and some of the ingredients included just aren't safe. They recently added the stabiliser methyhexyl cinnemate to their Ionzyme range. This is to protect the integrity of the antioxidants but is an endocrine disruptor according to studies, do we really want to microinject it deeper into the skin long term? It is also a potential irritant and unstable UV filter which is known to break down and cause free radicals in UV light so I understand a lot of Environ users are no longer confident in using the product in the a.m.

I don't know if perhaps its hard to induce any such dangerous reaction at home with the Environ 0.1 roller and thusly Environ are not so concerned but I'm sure the products are used for medical rolls too.

I once thought that Environ products were the best on the market but I am rapidly losing confidence because I feel our safety may be being compromised in some ways.

free skin care · Thu Mar 23, 2017 3:20 pm

I just ordered the Environ C Quence line so I will report back with that one. The AVST line has been discontinued and replaced with a new line called enhanced original and I didn't see the ingredients list so hopefully they removed the silicone.

Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:31 am

I use C-quence 3, it's a product my sensitive skin really agrees with. Its a HUGE time saver as it introduces all the main useful actives: A, C, E, peptides such as Matrixyl and antioxidants and also works as a fantastic moisturiser for me. If it also contained soy isoflavones and licorice extract it would be perfect but it's easy enough for me to add those separately in other products.

There are no 'cones in it. However, there are a few ingredients I don't really feel confident about encouraging into deeper layers of skin via needling, especially the ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate. This concerns me enormously!
Its a very difficult situation as this is something I avoid in sunscreens like the plague, it's a free radical producer and endocrine disruptor. Due to the inclusion of this I no longer use Environ during the day which has put me on a frustrating quest to find another antiox serum which agrees with my skin under sunscreen.

However, to play devil's advocate, the inclusion of ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate was for the purpose of stabilising the Vitamin A and green tea extract, it's one of the few things capable of actually doing so. Dr Des's main concern is to deliver a product in which the actives are actually, well, active! There are soooo many products on the market which we can only assume are useless by the time they've sat on a shelf for a while in questionable conditions and then found themselves into our hands. Products are tested for mould and bacteria but rarely are they ever tested for stability of the actual ingredients. Environ is one of the few products I actually trust in this capacity, though ironically I hate the idea of using ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate. I keep mine in a cosmetics fridge to further ensure the stability (peptides are rapidly destroyed at warmer temperatures) and it can only go to help the vitamins also.

free skin care · Wed Apr 19, 2017 3:18 pm

I have also noticed that only their moisturizer contains parabens which makes me mad that I purchased this stuff without looking at all the ingredients.

Fri Apr 21, 2017 7:48 am

Which moisturiser is that? From what I understand Environ don't add preservatives, they just reflect everything that is in the individual ingredients of their product on their label (which is very honest of them.) Most of the factory sourced raw ingredients/actives skin care companies used have preservatives, this ends up being a minute amount of the final product and they don't have to legally disclose it. Environ do.

I used to avoid parabens like the plague but I don't any longer having read so much deeper into it. I think a lot of the fear surrounding them is fear mongering from the whole 'greenwashing' movement.

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