The Hyfrecator delivers a low-power, high-frequency electrical current through a fine tip. At the point of contact the current heats the water inside the cells until they dry out and die — desiccation, literally drying. Only a tiny volume of tissue is affected, which is what makes it precise enough for small facial bumps.
It also seals small blood vessels as it works, so it is used to stop bleeding during shave removals, punch biopsies and excisions as well as being a treatment in its own right.
For sebaceous hyperplasia, the target is an oil gland that has enlarged into a small yellowish bump with a dip in the middle. The tip destroys the visible part of the gland, which shrinks and crusts over. The gland extends deeper than the treatment reaches, which is why these bumps commonly come back within a year or two.
Because the tissue is destroyed rather than removed, nothing can be sent to a pathologist, and because heat kills pigment-producing cells along with the target, the healed spot can end up lighter than the skin around it.
For the full detail on this procedure — what happens in the room, recovery day by day, risks, and the comparison with freezing and shave removal — see the Electrodesiccation page. Everything on it applies here.
Tell your provider if you have a pacemaker or implanted defibrillator. That is the one thing that genuinely changes the plan.
Eat beforehand.
You do not need to stop blood thinners.
Mention a lidocaine allergy, a history of keloids, or a pale mark left by a previous heat or freezing treatment.
Arrive with no makeup or cream on the area.
If many facial bumps are being treated, ask about numbing cream — it needs 30 to 60 minutes on the skin, so it is usually applied at home.
Ask for a test on one or two bumps before committing to a whole face, particularly on darker skin. It is a normal request.
You sit or lie down and the skin is wiped with antiseptic, which is left to dry fully because alcohol-based preps are flammable. A small sticky pad may go on your arm or thigh to complete the circuit.
A tiny injection of local anaesthetic beside the bump. A sharp prick, then a burning sting for five to fifteen seconds as it spreads. That burn is the lidocaine itself, which is acidic. For a single small spot many people skip numbing altogether, because the treatment is shorter than the injection would be.
The tip is touched to the bump for one to five seconds. You will hear a small buzz or crackle, and the bump may whiten or shrink as it dries out.
You will smell smoke, which most people describe as burnt hair. That is your own tissue. It is completely normal, painless, and it is the detail people most often say nobody warned them about — more noticeable here than elsewhere because the treatment is right under your nose.
Numbed, you feel warmth and light pressure. Not numbed, each touch is a brief hot pinprick like a plucked hair.
A tiny dark crust and some ointment. No stitches, usually no dressing.
One spot is under a minute. A face full of sebaceous hyperplasia is 10 to 20 minutes. The appointment is 15 to 30 minutes.
Yes, immediately. No sedation, no restrictions. The only thing worth planning around is that the small crusts are visible on the face for a week or so.
Stinging like a small burn for a few hours, with redness and mild swelling. Paracetamol if needed. Apply plain petroleum jelly two or three times a day — not antibiotic ointment, which does not lower infection rates on a clean minor wound and causes an allergic rash in a fair number of people.
Each spot forms a small dark crust. On the face these are visible, and this is the socially awkward phase rather than a painful one. Makeup can usually go on after about 48 hours — ask.
Do not pick them. Picking a crust off early is the main reason a procedure that rarely scars leaves a scar.
Shower normally, but avoid soaking, saunas, pools and heavy sweating until the crusts have gone.
The crusts fall off, leaving pink spots.
The pink fades over one to three months. Daily sunscreen through this window makes a real difference to the final appearance, especially on brown and Black skin.
Most spots settle to skin colour and become hard to find. Some stay slightly pale or slightly sunken, and that is the lasting trade-off.
Each treated bump is destroyed immediately, but what you see for the first week or two is a crust rather than the result. The final appearance settles over one to three months as the pink fades.
Sebaceous hyperplasia is the main use and the one with the honest catch. The visible bump is the top of an enlarged oil gland that runs deeper than the treatment reaches, so recurrence at the same spot within months to a couple of years is common, and people who get these bumps tend to keep producing new ones. Treat it as maintenance repeated every one to two years, not a cure.
Cherry angiomas, skin tags and deep milia rarely return at the same site once treated. New ones elsewhere are not prevented.
Broken capillaries often need a second pass, and new vessels appear over time, particularly in rosacea.
Most treated spots become hard to find within a year. A minority stay as tiny pale or slightly sunken dots, permanently.
The battery-powered "plasma pens," skin-tag removers and cauterising wands sold online are marketed as the home version of this device. They are not a weaker Hyfrecator; they are an uncontrolled burn. No local anaesthetic, no control over depth, no sterility, and nobody diagnosing what is being burnt. Documented outcomes include full-thickness burns, permanent white or brown marks, and craters worse than the bump — usually on the face, which is where people most want to use them. Cutting a growth off, tying it off with thread, and caustic pastes all belong in the same category.
The reason to avoid them is not mainly the scar or the infection, though both are common. It is that some of what people burn off at home is not what they assume. A basal cell carcinoma can look almost exactly like sebaceous hyperplasia — a small pearly bump with fine vessels over it. Destroyed at home, the tissue is gone, nobody examines it, the skin heals over, and what remains keeps growing under the scar. Said once, plainly: if it is worth removing, it is worth knowing what it was.
What genuinely helps at home: a topical retinoid used consistently reduces how many new sebaceous hyperplasia bumps and milia appear, though it will not clear existing ones. After treatment, petroleum jelly on the crusts and daily sunscreen on the healing spots do more for the final appearance than anything sold as a scar cream.