With all the obsession with vampires in pop culture, the prince of darkness has infiltrated the cosmetic world with what has been called the ‘vampire facelift’. This is nothing particularly new. The vampire facelift is a technology called PRP or platelet rich plasma, a natural portion of blood that can be isolated from patients and injected for various purposes. All the growth factors that circulate throughout the body can be found in the processed blood and “theoretically” would be of some use. Orthopedic surgeons have used the technique of injecting one’s own blood with mixed success to help healing joints and tendons. As a cosmetic application, we have found very limited to no benefit as compared to the huge success of various fillers on the market. Aside from its limited effectiveness for wrinkles, we do not know the long term effects of injecting any sort of growth factors into the skin. There are some studies that show improved healing with aggressive lasers and similar procedures. The improvement may not be enough to significantly incur extra cost though. As for PRP for beauty, filling and wrinkles, Dr. Frank’s consensus- don’t believe the hype. Just keep watching ‘True Blood’ and ‘Twilight’.