Mr. Onur Gilleard
Qualifications & Experience
Mr Onur Gilleard is a distinguished consultant plastic surgeon on the GMC specialist register. He previously held an NHS consultant post at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, specialising in skin cancer and microsurgical reconstruction. In 2021, Mr Gilleard transitioned from the NHS to dedicate himself fully to private practice, allowing him to focus exclusively on providing personalised, high-quality care to his patients. He is recognised as an expert in laser treatments, having conducted research and developed advanced treatment protocols using cutting-edge laser technology to optimise both clinical outcomes and cosmetic results.
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Every home skin tag device fails in its own characteristic way, and we see the results: ligation bands and thread leave a half-strangled, black, painful tag still attached; freezing kits leave a pale scarred patch on the neck where the tag used to be; scissors and clippers cause bleeding that frightens people, because every tag contains a feeding blood vessel. And no kit can do the one thing that matters most — confirm the growth is actually a skin tag. This guide goes tool by tool, honestly, and explains what to do instead.
Tool by Tool: What Each One Does
| Method / product | How it’s meant to work | What we actually see |
|---|---|---|
| Ligation bands & thread/floss | Tie off the stalk so the tag dies and drops | Half-strangled tags — black, painful, infected and still attached. The commonest home failure we treat. |
| OTC freezing kits (e.g. cryo pens) | Freeze the tag so it falls off | Pale, scarred patches — often permanent, especially on the neck. The tag goes; a worse mark replaces it. |
| Scissors, nail clippers, blades | Cut the tag at the base | Bleeding that frightens people — every tag has a feeding vessel — plus infection risk, since a bathroom is not a sterile field. |
| Removal creams & acid pastes | Dissolve the tag chemically | Burns and irritation of the normal skin around the tag; poor control of depth; often no effect on the tag itself. |
| “Natural” remedies (tea tree, apple cider vinegar, toothpaste) | Shrink or dry out the tag | Contact dermatitis and pigment change at best; no reliable removal. Tags are collagen and vessels — nothing dissolves them from outside. |
Why Kits Fail Even When They “Work”
Some home attempts do eventually remove the tag — and still leave you worse off. Three reasons:
- Depth control. A kit can’t judge how deep to go. Too shallow leaves part of the base, so the tag regrows from the stump; too deep leaves a pitted or pale scar. In clinic, depth is the whole skill.
- Site suitability. Products designed for thick skin behave very differently on the eyelid, groin or neck, where the skin is thin and scars conspicuously.
- No sterility and no anaesthetic. Which is why the wound, not the tag, becomes the problem — and why a job that takes seconds in clinic turns into a week of dressings at home.
One patient’s arithmetic makes the point: he tied thread around a large tag, arrived three days later with a black, throbbing, infected lump still attached, and needed antibiotics plus removal a week later. Total cost more than doing it properly once — plus a scar he needn’t have had.
The Problem No Kit Can Solve
This is the part product packaging never mentions. A device can remove a lump; it cannot tell you what the lump was. In Mr Gilleard’s words:
“The real danger with skin tags is complacency. Occasionally something that looks like a tag is actually a basal cell carcinoma, a melanoma, or a neurofibroma, which is why I examine every lesion before removing it and send anything atypical for histology.”
How often? In the largest published series, 1,335 lesions removed as presumed skin tags included five that proved malignant on histology (Eads et al., Arch Dermatol 1996). Rare — but note the second-order problem: a home removal destroys the tissue a pathologist would examine, so nobody can say afterwards what it was. One patient came to have a “skin tag” removed near her jawline; it was firm and pearly rather than soft, and histology confirmed a basal cell carcinoma, cured by that excision. Snipped at home, it would simply have regrown.
Sites Where Home Removal Is Never Acceptable
- Eyelids and the corner of the eye — chemical or cold injury risk to the eye itself; these are removed in clinic with a corneal shield (see tags at the corner of the eye).
- Genital and perianal skin — thin, highly vascular, and the diagnosis needs confirming first.
- Anything on the face — where a preventable scar is permanently visible.
- Any large or broad-based tag — these need formal excision with a stitch, not a snip.
- Anyone with diabetes or reduced immunity — slower healing, less forgiving infections.
What to Do Instead
The clinical alternative is genuinely quick and, once you account for a failed kit, often cheaper. A consultant confirms the diagnosis, then a small tag is removed by snip excision or hyfrecation under local anaesthetic in seconds, with no stitches; a larger or broad-based tag is formally excised with a dissolvable stitch and the base cauterised. We can treat up to around 20–30 small tags in one visit. We don’t use freezing for tags at all — it’s imprecise and risks the same pale patches the home kits cause. Significant scarring runs at under 2%, and a narrow-stalked tag taken by snip often leaves no visible mark.
Cost is £200 for the first tag, £125 for each additional tag, consultation £100 — see the full cost breakdown. Aftercare is simple: keep it lightly moist rather than dry-scabbing, don’t pick it, and use SPF on a healing mark. Book an assessment or call 0203 916 6200.
If You’ve Already Tried One
No lecture — just what to do now. Bleeding: firm pressure with a clean dressing for ten full minutes. A tied-off tag that’s now black and painful: don’t pull it or re-tie it; have it assessed, as prompt removal usually gives immediate relief. Spreading redness, pus, fever: that’s infection — get it reviewed the same day. A tag that regrew: part of the base was left, and it can be removed properly. Anything you’re no longer sure was a tag: have it examined rather than assumed. The full picture is in removal gone wrong and infected or black skin tags.
Your Questions, Answered
- Are DIY skin tag removal kits safe?
- Not really. Ligation bands and thread commonly leave a half-strangled, black, infected tag still attached; freezing kits leave permanent pale scars, particularly on the neck; blades cause bleeding because every tag has a feeding vessel. And no kit can confirm the growth is actually a skin tag.
- Do over-the-counter freezing pens work on skin tags?
- Sometimes the tag goes — but the trade-off is a real risk of a permanent pale patch where it was, especially on the neck and in darker skin. That’s why we don’t freeze tags in clinic either: it’s imprecise compared with a snip or hyfrecation.
- Can I cut a skin tag off with nail clippers or scissors?
- Please don’t. Tags contain a small blood vessel, so bleeding is often much heavier than expected, and household tools aren’t sterile. You also lose the chance to have the lesion identified if it turns out not to be a tag.
- How can I tell if a growth is a skin tag or something more serious?
- You often can’t with certainty, which is the point. A tag is soft, skin-coloured and hangs on a narrow stalk. Anything firm, pigmented, growing quickly, bleeding unprovoked, or simply different from your other tags should be examined and possibly biopsied rather than removed at home.
- Do natural remedies like tea tree oil or apple cider vinegar work?
- No. A skin tag is collagen and blood vessels wrapped in skin — nothing applied on the surface dissolves it. What these can produce is contact dermatitis and pigment change on the surrounding normal skin.
- Isn’t professional removal much more expensive?
- Not once a home attempt goes wrong. Removal is £200 for the first tag (£125 each additional, £100 consultation), whereas an infected home attempt means antibiotics, a delayed removal anyway, and often an avoidable scar.
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