Vampire Facials | Popular Science
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Why Are Celebrities Getting Vampire Facials?

The science of the "vampire facial"

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Kim Kardashian shows off the effects of a "vampire facial" or "blood facial."

Kim Kardashian has gotten one. So, apparently, have other ladies in Miami.



The idea behind blood facials is that they infuse the skin with platelets, which contain growth factors, which in turn are known to be helpful in wound healing. Practitioners of related injections say the growth factors may stimulate new collagen growth in the face. Collagen is the protein in skin that keeps young'uns' cheeks firm and taut.

Whether that collagen growth really happens and helps, "nobody really knows," Patricia Farris, a cosmetic dermatologist with a practice in Louisiana, tells Popular Science. "I just think that it's a procedure you don't know all that much about. I think we need good studies to see if this is an appropriate use for this material."

"It's not something in mainstream cosmology or dermatology practice," she says later in our conversation. In her practice, she offers injections such as Botox and Restylane for smoothing wrinkles, she says, but not plasma injections.

Needling the skin always has the risk of infection, but Farris didn't think that would be a significant danger if people received the procedures from a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. She also doesn't think that getting your own plasma is likely to cause a problem, but she says that nobody has studied whether that's true.

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Side effects he has seen include small bruises. Like Farris, he mentioned the potential danger of infection, but added he hadn't seen that in his own patients.

He's less enthused about the all-over needling that vampire facials require. "I wouldn't let anyone do that to me," he says. He doesn't believe micro-needles deliver the plasma properly into the skin.


No injectable platelet-rich plasma has FDA approval for aesthetic uses, Sclafani says. But doctors commonly—and are legally allowed to—use FDA-approved drugs and devices in a way for which the drug or device didn't earn FDA approval.

Both Sclafani and Katz say their typical treatment costs about $1,500, but the amount depends on how much a patient ends up using.


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