My skin tag turned black: what should you know?

A narrow-based skin tag can twist, reducing its blood flow and causing darkening, tenderness, dryness, or eventual shrinkage. Friction from clothing, jewellery, or shaving can also injure the surface and create a crust or small amount of bleeding. Dark colour alone cannot confirm that the growth is a skin tag; a mole or another lesion can sometimes resemble one.

Avoid pulling, cutting, tying off, or applying home acids to the growth. Keep the area clean, reduce rubbing, and take a clear photograph so changes can be compared. Arrange a dermatology assessment if the lesion is new, keeps changing, bleeds without clear irritation, becomes persistently painful, or has an uneven appearance. A clinician can decide whether observation or removal is appropriate; options may include Skin Tag Removal, Cryotherapy (Lesion Removal), or Electrosurgery.

Seek prompt medical care for bleeding that does not settle with gentle pressure, spreading redness, warmth, pus, fever, or rapidly increasing pain. Arrange a timely review for a dark mark that does not clearly arise from a known, typical skin tag, especially if its border, colour, or size is changing.

Ask whether the growth has features of a twisted skin tag, whether it needs examination with magnification, and which removal method would suit its location. Mention when the colour changed, any friction or trauma, bleeding, pain, and whether similar growths have appeared.