Micro Infusion Before and After: My Honest Results After 5 Months

I want to be upfront with you before you read any further: I built Erra Skin because micro infusion changed my skin. So yes, I'm biased. But I also spent over 14 years struggling with my skin, another six watching it slowly get worse after I stopped clinic treatments, and I know exactly what it feels like to scroll through before and afters online and wonder if any of it is real.

 

So this isn't a polished brand post. It's just what actually happened over five months of consistent use. The good, the slow parts, and what I genuinely wish I'd known at the start.

 

Where My Skin Was Before I Started

By the time I was in my late thirties, my skin had shifted in a way that felt different to anything I'd dealt with before. In my twenties it was acne. I was on antibiotics for nearly ten years, cycling on and off them trying to keep breakouts under control. When I finally had professional treatments in my early thirties including extractions and microneedling, my skin genuinely transformed. For the first time, I felt confident without makeup.

 

But clinic visits were expensive, time-consuming, and hard to maintain consistently. I stopped going regularly. Life got in the way. And then slowly, quietly, my skin started going backwards.

 

By my late thirties, what I was dealing with wasn't breakouts anymore. It was dullness. Loss of texture. Larger pores. The kind of skin that looks tired in photos even when you don't feel tired. I remember thinking: is Botox where this is heading? Fillers? I was almost about to book an appointment to ‘enquire’ about getting botox. But that wasn't what my skin actually needed. What it needed was renewal, the same thing microneedling had given me years earlier.

 

Why I Started Using Micro Infusion at Home

My first instinct wasn’t actually to do it at home. I booked in for a single clinic treatment, not because I wanted the treatment, but because I wanted to see which microneedling pen they used so I could buy one and do it myself.

 

It didn’t go to plan. The pen was quite painful, and watching the aesthetician work it across my skin, I knew immediately that I couldn’t replicate that technique safely at home. The speed, the pressure, the precision, it wasn’t something you could just pick up and do yourself without real risk of damage.

 

So I went back to researching. Derma rollers, other at-home pens, patches. I tested a lot and read everything I could find. Most options felt either too aggressive, too inconsistent, or designed more for marketing than for actual results.

 

 

What kept coming back as the safest and most replicable option was a dermal stamp. Not a roller. A stamp. A controlled, straight-down motion that you can perform consistently on yourself without the technique risk of a pen. I found a cosmetic device manufacturer, and together we refined the design and developed a patented delivery system that lets active ingredients absorb at the same time as the micro-channels are created. That became Erra Skin.

 

The Honest Month-by-Month Timeline

Month 1: Not much. And that's fine.

I want to set your expectations here because I think a lot of before-and-afters online skip this part. Month one was subtle. My skin felt a little smoother after each session, and my serum felt like it was absorbing better. But I wouldn't have called it a transformation.

 

If you're someone who has used microneedling professionally before, you'll recognise this phase. Skin renewal takes time. The first month is really about establishing the process, not seeing the result.

 

What I did notice was the glow for first few days after the treatment. My skin felt super hydrated and my skincare felt like it was being absorbed and not just sitting on the top of my skin.

 

Month 2: Something started shifting.

By the second month I was starting to see a change in texture. Not dramatic. But the kind of difference you notice in side lighting, or in photos taken on your phone without a filter. My skin felt more even to the touch, smoother.

 

I also noticed I was reaching for concealer less. Not because breakouts were gone, I wasn't dealing with active breakouts at this stage, but because the overall tone looked more awake. Less flat.

 

Month 3: This is where it got interesting.

Month three was the turning point for me. My skin texture had visibly improved. The dullness that had been sitting on my skin for what felt like years had started to lift. I remember thinking, this is what my skin used to feel like when I was getting regular clinic treatments.

 

That comparison matters. Because that's exactly what I built Erra Skin to replicate. Not a one-off result. Consistent, maintained skin renewal.

 

My makeup, when I did wear it, felt like it was going on smoother. All of my skincare felt like it was absorbing differently too. When I applied my products, I could feel the texture of my skin underneath my fingertips, and it didn’t feel as rough as it had. I started wearing less makeup overall, and on the days I did enhance it, my skin just shone through. That’s when I really started to get excited. And the compliments from other people started coming in too.

 

Months 4 and 5: The compound effect.

The last two months were less about dramatic change and more about noticing that my skin had become something I could rely on. It wasn't improving in a big visible jump anymore, it was just consistently good. Which, honestly, is the goal.

 

Skin that you can count on is different to skin that has a good day occasionally. After five months of consistent two-weekly treatments, my skin had changed in a way that felt stable, not temporary.

 

What I'd Tell You If You're Thinking About Starting

The honest answer is that micro infusion isn't a shortcut. If you're looking for an overnight result, this isn't it. But if you're in your thirties, forties or fifties and beyond and your skin is starting to feel like it's changed - duller, less bouncy, slower to respond to products, then consistency with micro infusion is one of the most effective things I've found.

 

I think of it like a lawn. If you want the best lawn on the block, what does that look like? It looks like aerating the soil, applying fertiliser, watering, and then repeating. For your skin, that's creating micro-channels, infusing with a peptide serum, and repeating consistently. The process is the point.

 

A few things I genuinely wish I'd known at the start:

 

 

The Bigger Picture

I didn't create Erra Skin to replace clinic treatments. I created it because I know from personal experience that consistent, repeated skin renewal is what produces lasting results, and most of us can't access clinics often enough to make that happen. Clinics are expensive and time-consuming to arrange and attend appointments.

 

After five months, my skin is in the best condition it's been since those early professional microneedling sessions in my thirties. Not because of one treatment. Because of twenty.

 

Skin responds to consistency. That's always been the truth of it. You wouldn't go to the gym once and expect to build the strength and structure of a fit body — skin works the same way.

 

At the end of the day, we all just want to be the best version of ourselves. We're all going to age and see the effects of time and life on our face. If I can do something to give my skin life - hydration, a glow, a bit of vibrancy - I'm very excited to keep doing it.

 

 

Rachel McRae is the founder of Erra Skin. After 14 years of acne and years of inconsistent clinic treatments, she built Erra Skin to make professional-grade skin renewal accessible and sustainable at home. All results described in this post are her own.