My skin and I have a volatile relationship.
Or maybe my skin is just volatile and I’m always trying to appease her. I want her to do well, to feel her best, to live a long, healthy, vital life. But I also don’t want to push her, to try and get her to do too much, because she’ll freak TF out. The girls who get it, get it.
I have had microneedling done professionally (still need to try PRP, but I hate downtime), and I’ve dabbled in dermarolling at home, but the act of rolling doesn’t really agree with my skin either. Maybe there is a slight dragging sensation my skin can’t handle—I’m not sure.
While I was curious about the Ritual Set with the serum and stamper, I was still hesitant. But the ingredients in the serum made me less so. Typically, it’s something more active, promising intensive results (read: explosive for me). But the Ritual Set has niacinamide, which is known to balance the skin’s barrier, improve red spots and dark spots, soothe inflammation, minimize lines and the look of pores (which my skin looooves), as well as licorice root that’s both brightening and super soothing.
Since I know exactly what these clean ingredients are and how much they agree with me, my angst was placated.
Ritual Set
Price: $225
The Things We Do
I used this on clean, dry skin that was only spritzed once with a post-cleanse mineral mist to normalize my skin’s pH. The first thing I noticed was that the needles on the stamper were super tiny and not intended to break the skin in a significant way, which relieved me.
You have to use an entire ampule when filling the stamper vessel, which drenches every inch of your skin in the product. No scarcity mindset here, so feel free to spend time on every inch.
After treating my whole face, I didn’t put on anything except a rich collagen cream to moisturize. You don’t want to use any active ingredients after the needles compromise your skin barrier. This allows the serum to penetrate deep into the lower layers of your skin for complete absorption and best results, and I didn’t want to tamper with that.
Normally, I’d have a perioral, dermatitis-like reaction when doing something this invasive to my skin at home. Or I’d be red, inflamed, and even break out. But I had the complete opposite experience. My skin wasn’t red when I woke up—even though I had just punctured every square inch of my face with tiny needles Hell Boy-style before drifting off to dreamland on my silk pillowcases.
In fact, my skin tone was super even—more even than before doing this treatment. Tiny spots were minimized or cleared up, and even the pores in my T-zone looked smaller. I didn’t wear makeup that following day, but I did the evening after, and it went on super smooth and stayed dewy.
I definitely want to make this a weekly ritual.
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