I have an annoying skin tag on my left thigh and when I run or go caching or any other lots-of-walking type activity it always gets chafed and starts to sting. It’s about the size of two rice grains next to each other attached very loosely. A few days ago I did a 20 minute Wii Fit Free Run and the chafing got so bad I was walking funny for a few days afterwards. This skin tag has to come off.

I have a choice for removal. I could get Peroxide and Alcohol, sterilize my own snips and just shear it off and then put on a band-aid and let it heal up. I could waddle over to a dermatologist and pay $200 for him to do the same thing for me, or, well, is there an or?

Turns out, there is an “OR” to this. There is a homeopathic/old-wives-cure for moles and skin-tags, it involves a poultice of Castor Oil and Baking Soda. So at the start I mixed 1 tsp of Baking Soda and 1 tsp of Castor Oil together into a thick paste and mixed it in a little bowl. I then got a box of band-aids and I dab a little of the poultice on my skin-tag and then cover it with a band-aid. The conventional wisdom states that in two weeks the tag should be gone.

I can say that it’s been three days using the poultice and the tag is indeed shrinking. It used to be long with a narrow floppy part, that’s gone. The damn stuff actually works! It’s odorless, white from the baking soda, and by all popular accounts it won’t leave a scar or a mark, just smooth flat non-taggy skin. I’m fine with not having to use scissors and put up with all the pain, bleeding, and possibility of infection. I love how something from the 19th Century or even before that still works today. So much better, this kind of medicine. Turns out Castor Oil also fixes a huge host of skin disorders, I wonder how it’d work against Athletes Foot. I’ve got stuff for that when it flares up, but I still wonder.