One of these is an energy device. The other is a needle plus your own blood. Morpheus8 pushes insulated needles into the skin and releases radiofrequency current at their tips, heating the deeper layer. A "vampire facial" is microneedling - needles making thousands of tiny channels, with no energy at all - followed by platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, taken from your own blood and spread onto the treated skin.
The FDA position on these two is not what people expect, and it splits down the middle of the vampire facial. Morpheus8 is a cleared device whose cleared words are surgical rather than cosmetic: electrocoagulation and hemostasis, meaning sealing tissue and stopping bleeding (K192695, December 2019), then coagulation or contraction of soft tissue (K231790, 2023). The needling half of a vampire facial does have a named cosmetic authorisation - SkinPen for facial acne scars, and neck wrinkles in Fitzpatrick II to IV. The PRP half has none at all. The kits that spin your blood are cleared, and for the widely used product code the cleared use is preparing PRP to be mixed with bone graft in orthopaedic surgery. No PRP preparation system is cleared or approved for facial rejuvenation, acne scarring or hair loss, and PRP itself has no FDA approval for any aesthetic indication. Aesthetic PRP is off-label practice of medicine, which is legal, and common.
The evidence that PRP adds anything is weak. In the one randomised trial that added PRP to radiofrequency microneedling - 20 people, mild to moderate neck laxity, three sessions - both groups improved on every measure. Mean dermal thickness was higher in the PRP group, but that difference was not statistically significant. The authors wrote that it remains questionable whether combining the two gives more favourable results.
That needling authorisation was the first of its kind. SkinPen was authorised through a De Novo request in March 2018, which created the FDA category for microneedling devices. That authorisation is for the needling. It is not for the PRP.
Needles insulated except at the last 0.5 mm, energised once they are in the skin.
Blood is drawn, spun in a centrifuge, and the platelet-rich fraction is separated and applied to the freshly needled skin. It may also be injected into the skin.
Radiofrequency current flows between pins inside the tip, heating a small column of tissue at a chosen depth. The immediate collagen contraction and the deeper remodelling both come from that heat.
Microneedling makes the injury; the body's normal wound healing does the rest. PRP is the theory that concentrating your own platelets - which carry growth factors - and delivering them into those channels speeds up or amplifies the healing response.
Manufacturer labelling lists a fixed 0.5 mm resurfacing tip, 1 to 4 mm on the 12-pin tip, 1 to 7 mm on the 24-pin tip and 2 to 7 mm on the 40-pin body tip. The deepest figure in any FDA summary is 7.0 mm.
SkinPen is adjustable up to 2.5 mm and its labelling instructs treatment at depths of up to 2.5 mm. Dermapen 4 is selectable from 0.2 to 3.0 mm. How far PRP actually travels down those channels is not established.
Electrocoagulation and hemostasis (2019), then coagulation or contraction of soft tissue (2023). Acne scars, wrinkles, laxity and pore size appear in none of it.
SkinPen's authorisation names facial acne scars in all skin types and neck wrinkles in Fitzpatrick II to IV. Dermapen 4's names facial acne scars in Fitzpatrick I to V, with no neck indication. PRP has no aesthetic authorisation of any kind.
Across the radiofrequency microneedling class, acne scarring is the best-evidenced use: a systematic review of 16 studies and 481 patients, 6 of them randomised. A same-patient split-face trial found it matched fractional CO2 laser on acne scar scores with less downtime and fewer patches of darkened skin afterwards.
A review that pooled 24 randomised trials and 1,546 participants and ranked the treatments against each other found microneedling combined with other treatments outperformed microneedling alone - but microneedling with PRP was itself outperformed by microneedling with a chemical peel on improvement, satisfaction and efficacy.
In a 44-person acne scar study, redness occurred in 100 per cent of patients and swelling in 30 per cent. A 33-person neck study put downtime at 3 to 4 days. Skin barrier measurements peak in the first three days and are back to baseline by day 7.
Plus bruising wherever blood is drawn or PRP is injected. This is the conventional clinical description rather than a labelled figure.
It adds that 3 to 5 are generally needed at mild to moderate depth settings. Published trials most often used 3.
This is the conventional description of microneedling practice, not a labelled figure and not a dose-finding result.
Your blood is drawn, spun in a centrifuge, and the platelet-rich portion is applied to the freshly needled skin. The full account of how it is prepared, and why "PRP" is not one standardised product, is on the vampire facial vs microneedling page.
The honest answer is: a little, maybe, and less than the marketing suggests.
The one randomised trial combining PRP with radiofrequency microneedling put 20 people into two groups for neck laxity. Both improved significantly on every parameter. Dermal thickness measured by optical coherence tomography was higher in the PRP group, but the difference was not statistically significant. A global aesthetic score favoured PRP. The authors' own conclusion was that it remains questionable whether the combination provides more favourable results.
The broader scar literature is larger and mostly covers mechanical microneedling rather than radiofrequency. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials found PRP alone produced an overall response of 23 per cent - essentially the same as laser at 22 per cent or microneedling at 23 per cent - and that added to microneedling it produced 43 per cent marked and 23 per cent excellent responses. The same authors open by stating there is no convincing evidence supporting its use and close by describing it as safe and additive, so read the whole finding rather than either half.
And in a review that pooled 24 randomised trials and ranked the combinations against each other, microneedling plus PRP was beaten by microneedling plus a chemical peel.
The heat is what separates the two risk lists. Morpheus8 buys a thermal injury at a depth the operator chooses, and that brings its own list: burns, unwanted fat loss in the FDA's postmarket reports, and an on-label restriction to Fitzpatrick skin types I to IV above 62 millijoules per pin. A vampire facial delivers no heat, so none of that applies to it. What it adds instead is a biological with no aesthetic authorisation which, in the one trial that tested it on top of radiofrequency microneedling, did not produce a significant advantage on the objective measure. That is the real choice here: a chosen depth of heat, or an unregulated add-on.
Any procedure that handles blood and needles depends on the facility, not the branding.
An investigation published in MMWR in April 2024 identified four former clients of one New Mexico spa, plus the sexual partner of a client, all diagnosed with HIV between 2018 and 2023 despite low reported behavioural risk, with genetic sequencing showing highly similar virus across the cases. The clients had received PRP microneedling facials there; the facility was unlicensed, did not follow recommended infection control procedures and kept no client records. The failure mode was licensing and infection control, not PRP.
Use a licensed provider in a licensed facility. Ask whether every device that touches you is single-use, and whether the clinic keeps client records.
Almost no published study used it. A PubMed search for "Morpheus8" returns 16 records and no randomised controlled trial. The research that supports radiofrequency microneedling was generated on Lutronic Genius and Infini, Jeisys, Pollogen, Lumenis and several unnamed machines. The class evidence is real; it is just not this brand's evidence.
Fat loss shows up in the FDA's own post-market reports. An analysis of that database from January 2013 to October 2025 found 114 reports containing 224 events, of which 26 were fat loss - the third most reported category, after textural changes and pigment changes. That database is voluntary and has no denominator, so those are proportions of reports and cannot be converted into a chance of something happening to you. Against that, a split-face study in 30 people measured the fat layer under the chin by ultrasound after this kind of radiofrequency and found the skin thickened while the fat layer did not change significantly.
And six months is where the measured evidence stops. A critical review of 42 higher-quality studies found the collagen remodelling continues to improve even 6 months after treatment. Nothing has been properly measured beyond that. Clinic copy promising 1 to 3 years has no published source.
If you get cold sores, say so when you book - not on the day. Antiviral medicine is started in advance, so it has to be prescribed before the appointment. There is no published data on cold-sore reactivation after radiofrequency microneedling specifically; the precaution is carried over from laser resurfacing, where reactivation is well documented and prophylaxis is standard. It applies to either treatment, because both make openings in the skin.
Tell your provider about a pacemaker or an implantable defibrillator, and about metal implants near the treatment area, before any radiofrequency treatment. These are labelled contraindications for radiofrequency devices and are precautionary rather than tested - your cardiology team is the right place for that advice.
Ask to see the facility's licence, and ask whether the needling cartridge and the blood collection kit are single-use. Ask too what will be applied to your skin straight after the needles, and whether it is sterile - open microchannels are a route into the skin for whatever is put on them.
These can mean a spreading infection and need urgent care the same day.