A skin tag is a common, acquired benign skin growth that looks like a small piece of hanging skin. Skin tags are often described as bits of skin- or flesh-colored tissue that projects from the surrounding skin from a small, narrow stalk. They typically occur in characteristic locations including the neck, underarms, eyelids, and under the breasts (especially where underwire bras rub directly beneath the breasts).

Symptoms

• Skin tags and are benign (noncancerous), painless skin growths
• Much more common in middle age and they tend to increase in prevalence up to age 60
• Favorite areas for tags are the eyelids, neck, armpits, upper chest (particularly under the female breasts), and groin folds
• They are usually smooth or slightly wrinkled and irregular, flesh-colored or slightly more brown, and hang from the skin by a small stalk
• Early or beginning skin tags may be as small as a flattened pinpoint-sized bump around the neck

Other skin growths that may look similar to a skin tag but are not tags include

• Moles
• Nerve and fiber-type moles
• Seborrhic keratitis
• Warts

Treatment

Removing with scissors. Application of a topical anesthesia cream prior to the procedure may be desirable in areas where there are a large number of tags

Freezing (using liquid nitrogen)

Burning (using medical electric cautery at the physician's office)

Both freezing and burning can cause temporary skin discoloration, need for repeat treatment(s), and failure for the tag to fall off

Home remedies and self-treatments, including tying off the small tag stalk with a piece of thread or dental floss and allowing.