The Glow-Up That Hurt: What It’s Really Like to Get Skin Needling
Micro-needling promises glow and firmness, but timing can make all the difference.
4 min
In the glossy world of skincare and wellness, we often hear about the benefits of skin needling: tighter pores, improved texture, and that elusive post-treatment glow. What’s less discussed? Timing. More specifically, how the hormonal fluctuations of your menstrual cycle can impact the experience and your pain threshold, far more than the skincare forums let on.
I thought I had it all timed perfectly. I’ve done enough microneedling sessions to know that it’s not exactly a walk in the park – especially if you, like me, are the kind of person who winces at a deep tissue massage and cries a little during a bikini wax. So I planned carefully. I booked it during what I believed was a “safe” window, comfortably out of the PMS zone and well before Day One of my cycle.
Of course, my body had other plans. I woke up the morning of the appointment, cramps in tow, and immediately considered cancelling. That is, until I reread the clinic’s policy: 50% fee for rescheduling within 24 hours. And just like that, I found myself at the door, clutching my water bottle and whispering affirmations like I was about to sit an
Pain, Periods, and the Myth of the High Threshold
Let’s get one thing straight: we all have different pain thresholds. Some women breeze through labour with little more than a grimace. Others (hi, me) need to mentally prepare for eyebrow threading. But regardless of your usual threshold, during menstruation, everything changes.
As estrogen and progesterone levels drop in the days leading up to and during your period, the body becomes more inflamed, more sensitive, and, for many women, less tolerant of discomfort. You’re more prone to pain, your skin is more reactive, and even your emotional resilience takes a bit of a dip. These aren’t mood swings — they’re chemical fluctuations. And they affect everything.
That’s why, in hindsight, getting hundreds of tiny needles rolled into my face on the day my hormones hit rock bottom felt… intense.
But I wasn’t going to back out. I chose to stay. And to my own surprise, it became a moment of real resilience — not in a “push through the pain” way, but in a mindful, grounded, intentional way.
Breathing Through the Sting: A Masterclass in Mindfulness
As I lay back on the table, my therapist adjusted the pressure slightly and reminded me to breathe deeply, something I’ve heard in yoga studios a hundred times, but rarely applied to skincare.
At first, I distracted myself with light conversation – anything to keep my mind away from what was happening on my face. But when the more sensitive areas (cheeks, upper lip, forehead) were being treated, distraction didn’t quite cut it. That’s when I tapped into mindfulness.
I began to sync my breath with the pace of the roller: in for four counts, hold for two, out for four. I imagined breathing into the places that hurt, allowing the breath to soften the resistance. I reminded myself that pain is a wave — it rises, peaks, and passes.
And in that moment, I found something surprising: calm.
I wasn’t numbing myself or trying to “tough it out.” I was being incredibly present. Noticing the sensations, naming them (“sharp, hot, tingling”), and then letting them go. It felt like a meditation. One I hadn’t planned, but one I very much needed.
Wellness Beyond the Pretty
When we talk about wellness, we often imagine smooth transitions and well-curated rituals. But sometimes, wellness is uncomfortable. It’s showing up on a day you feel emotionally fragile and physically sore. It’s adjusting expectations, grounding into your body, and offering yourself compassion in real time.
That’s what this treatment became for me. Yes, I wanted clearer, more radiant skin – and I got that, eventually. But what I didn’t expect was to walk away with a deeper understanding of how connected my physical and emotional states really are. What we label as “low pain threshold” is often our body trying to communicate something important. And that there’s strength — a quiet, powerful kind — in choosing to stay present in discomfort.
So, Would I Recommend It?
Getting skin needling during your period isn’t ideal. Your skin is more sensitive, the inflammation response is heightened, and yes, it will likely hurt more. If you can reschedule without consequence, do it. But if you can’t, or if you choose to go ahead with it anyway, go in prepared.
Hydrate. Take paracetamol, not ibuprofen. Let your therapist know, so they can adjust their technique. And most importantly, take care of your emotional self as much as your physical one. Use breathwork to anchor you. Allow yourself to rest afterwards. And recognise that what you just did — despite the timing, despite the discomfort — was a form of self-care that goes beyond skincare.
Because wellness isn’t just about looking better. It’s about knowing yourself, trusting yourself, and supporting yourself through every phase — hormonal highs, lows, and everything in between.
Leticia Estrada Rahme is a writer, mother, and former TV journalist based in Bondi Beach. She explores beauty, mental health, and identity through the lens of storytelling and lived experience.
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OpenAI has shelved the planned launch of GPT-6.1 Astra after internal tests raised concerns about deception and agents acting beyond user authorization, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company says it will investigate the issues and strengthen safety measures before releasing future models.
4 min
OpenAI says it is scrapping the release of its next-generation AI model over safety concerns that researchers raised during internal testing, in one of the clearest signs so far that agent misbehavior could stymie the industry’s rapid progression.
The move follows a summer punctuated by reports of artificial-intelligence systems industrywide going rogue, and marks a rare case of a major AI developer ditching a new release because of safety concerns.
The company had planned to launch the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra, in the coming days or weeks, aiming for an October debut. The model was more capable than the company’s previous models in completing challenging tasks from end-to-end without human assistance, as well as writing.
The company instead will focus on improving the safety of future models, which it expects to be even more capable.
Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems, said in an interview that GPT-6.1 Astra regressed in two areas. Compared with its predecessor, GPT-6 Astra, the model performed poorly on tests measuring alignment, or how well the model adheres to what humans would like it to do. Specifically, GPT-6.1 Astra showed higher levels of deception: It wasn’t always honest about telling users of the actions it did or didn’t take.
Another issue was what OpenAI calls “scope authorization,” meaning that GPT-6.1 Astra would push ahead on a task without asking the user for permission, and would at times reach for external tools and services even if it might be unsafe.
“For anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s a trade off,” Jain said. “You really do need to find what’s the right line between staying within scope, but also avoiding laziness in terms of how the model actually pursues tasks even when it hits friction.”
While GPT-6.1 Astra improved in areas such as “model laziness,” Jain said it didn’t quite meet OpenAI’s bar for safety and alignment, so the company decided not to launch the model publicly.
The announcement comes one day ahead of OpenAI’s annual developer conference in San Francisco. In the past, OpenAI has used the conference as an opportunity to launch new models and services that reduce costs for software developers—a segment the ChatGPT-maker competes with rival AI company Anthropic to win over.
In recent weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have called on industry partners to slow down the development of cutting-edge AI models and invest in safety standards, noting they will temper the pace of their own internal AI progress.
OpenAI says it is working to investigate a range of agent security incidents that it has discovered in recent months, and address the safety issues underneath them. As part of the work, the company has implemented a new monitoring system to catch AI-agent misbehavior more quickly, and started requiring engineers to use stronger security guardrails for testing its AI systems.
Earlier this summer hundreds of OpenAI’s internal agents, which were tasked with completing a cybersecurity test, ended up hacking into the AI company Hugging Face. Since then, high-profile organizations such as the Australian government and United Nations discovered that OpenAI’s agents used similar, but less extensive, techniques to gain access to their websites.
Many of the publicly known agent-security incidents involved OpenAI’s internal AI models that were never slated for public release.
Last week, OpenAI said it paused training on its most capable AI models after an AI agent slipped through a gap in the company’s internet restrictions to query a public chatbot. The company said its new monitoring systems flagged the incident within 15 minutes, and training on these models remains paused.
GPT-6.1 Astra isn’t one of those models, but a different case, the company said.
“We want to make sure our model development is safe no matter whether that’s in the company, or when we ship it to users,” Jain said. “But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment.”
While the company decided not to ship GPT-6.1 Astra, it hopes to use the same base model to do additional reinforcement learning runs, and create future generations of its GPT-6 models.
OpenAI plans to conduct several deep dives to identify the root cause of the problems identified in GPT-6.1 Astra, Jain said. The work includes ensuring that OpenAI’s reinforcement learning environments are rewarding the right type of behavior, Jain added, though she noted the company would investigate all stages of model development.
AI companies have begun to draw scrutiny from policymakers and public officials, who are paying attention to the rapid development of the technology. Later this week, a Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing with third party AI researchers titled, “Rogue AI: Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, sued OpenAI in June, claiming that the company and Chief Executive Sam Altman knowingly released an unsafe product and ignored warnings that it could harm users.
In a motion for temporary injunction filed Monday, Uthmeier sought to prevent OpenAI from developing new AI models without third-party approved safeguards, stop ChatGPT from soliciting user engagement and limit the company’s ability to advertise ChatGPT as safe.
Tech companies claim they “cannot stop barreling forward with their potentially civilization-ending endeavors unless they are forced to do so by the government,” Uthmeier said in the filing. “The Florida Attorney General is answering your cry for help.”
An OpenAI spokeswoman said that people want to know AI is being developed safely, “and that starts with what companies like ours do ourselves.”
“Governments have an important role to play in setting robust safety standards for AI, and we’re committed to working with Florida and other states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry—not just one company,” she said.
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Victorian auction buyers will soon receive a piece of information that has traditionally been withheld until bidding reaches it: the vendor’s reserve price. Under new property-sale and underquoting laws, agents must publish the agreed reserve at least seven days before an auction or fixed-date sale. Most changes begin on 1 October 2026 and apply to …
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