Skin Tags

Skin tags are small, soft growths, usually close to your natural skin tone, that hang from the skin on a narrow stalk. They tend to appear in places where the skin folds or rubs, most often on the neck, under the arms and beneath the bust, and they have a way of catching on whatever passes over them. Once noticed, a tag can be hard to stop noticing, and many people simply want that patch of skin to feel like their own again.

This page is a cosmetic guide, not a diagnosis. Skinholic Aesthetics & Laser looks at typical-looking skin tags in person at a free consultation at either our Surrey clinic or our Aldergrove clinic in Langley Township before recommending anything, and points you to a physician first if a growth looks unusual.

Why do skin tags bother you more than their size suggests?

Maybe it is the one under your arm that stings every time a razor passes over it, or the one on the side of your neck that you now wear your hair down to cover. Maybe you catch yourself running a fingertip over it while you read, or the chain that kept snagging on it now stays in the drawer.

You may also find that the advice varies wildly. A friend had theirs dealt with without fuss, a forum thread warns you never to touch them, and a quick search turns up confident opinions from people who have never seen your skin. Every skin is different, and the tag that was straightforward for someone else may sit somewhere more delicate on you, or may not be a skin tag at all. What worked for a friend is not automatically the right fit for you.

That is why we start by looking rather than guessing. At your free consultation, an aesthetician examines the growths in person, asks what you noticed first and what bothers you most, and only then talks through a personalized plan.

It also helps to reset expectations early. A typical tag is usually dealt with at the visit itself, but the small spot it leaves needs time to settle and heal, and how that spot looks while it recovers varies from skin to skin. With a larger scattering, your aesthetician may spread the work across more than one visit rather than all at once.

What do skin tags typically look like?

These describe how the concern commonly looks; they are not a diagnostic checklist. Skin tags often show up as:

• A soft growth attached by a thin base that wobbles when nudged rather than sitting flat against the skin
• Usually skin-toned, sometimes a touch darker than the surrounding skin, with a surface that may look smooth or finely creased
• Grouped where skin folds or rubs against itself, and occasionally on the eyelids or in the groin crease
• Usually painless, though some people notice a tug when a seatbelt, towel or shirt collar drags across one
• Sometimes a single tag, sometimes a small scattering that has appeared gradually over several years
• Anywhere from a pinhead-sized bump to something about the size of a grain of rice

What might contribute to skin tags?

Nobody can say for certain why one person develops skin tags and another does not, but a few cosmetic contributors come up often. Any of the following can be associated with them:

• Repeated friction, whether from skin on skin or from a bra strap or collar worn daily, which is often linked with tags in the creases where the rubbing happens
• Natural aging, with many people noticing their first tags in adulthood or midlife
• Genetics and family patterns, since some people notice that tags run in their family
• Hormonal shifts, including pregnancy, which some people associate with new tags appearing
• Changes in body shape or weight, which can alter where skin meets skin

The mix is different for everyone, so a Skinholic aesthetician reviews these factors with you at your consultation, along with small daily habits that may help, such as choosing looser necklines or a softer waistband where a tag already sits, since day-to-day rubbing can aggravate one that is already there.