Warts are small, rough skin growths that range from the size of a pinhead to the size of a pea. Most are skin-colored, brown, or grey, and many have tiny black dots on the surface. Those dots aren’t seeds, despite the nickname. They’re actually small clotted blood vessels trapped inside the wart. Beyond that general description, warts look quite different depending on their type and where they grow on your body.
Common Warts on Hands and Fingers
Common warts are the type most people picture. They show up most often on the fingers and backs of the hands as small, grainy bumps that feel rough to the touch. Their surface has an uneven, almost cauliflower-like texture, and the tiny black dots (clotted blood vessels) are usually visible if you look closely. Color ranges from skin-toned to grey or brown. They can appear alone or in small clusters, and they tend to have a rounded, dome-shaped profile that rises clearly above the surrounding skin.
Plantar Warts on the Feet
Plantar warts grow on the soles of the feet, and they look different from hand warts because the pressure of walking pushes them inward rather than letting them dome outward. Instead of a raised bump, you’ll often see a hard, thickened patch of skin, similar to a callus, with a defined spot in the center. That spot may contain the same black pinpoints seen in common warts.
Because they grow inward beneath a thick layer of callused skin, plantar warts can be tricky to recognize. A key way to tell them apart from a regular callus: calluses have smooth, uniform surfaces, while plantar warts interrupt the normal lines of your skin (your footprint ridges) and contain those telltale dark dots. They’re also tender when you squeeze them from the sides, rather than when you press directly down.
Flat Warts
Flat warts look almost nothing like the rough, bumpy common wart. They’re smooth on top, only very slightly raised, and sometimes barely noticeable at all. Each one is tiny, between 1 and 5 millimeters across, no bigger than a pinhead. What makes them distinctive is their sheer number. They almost always appear in clusters, sometimes a dozen, sometimes a hundred or more in one area. They commonly show up on the face, forehead, or legs.
Because they’re so small and flat, people sometimes mistake them for a rash, acne, or just rough skin texture. Their tendency to form large groups in a concentrated area is the most reliable visual clue that you’re looking at flat warts rather than another skin condition.
Filiform Warts
Filiform warts have the most distinctive shape of any wart type. Instead of a rounded bump, they grow as narrow, finger-like projections that stick out a few millimeters from the skin’s surface. They’re small and sometimes pedunculated, meaning they hang from a thin stalk. They most commonly appear around the mouth, nose, eyes, and chin. In men, they frequently develop in the beard area, likely because shaving spreads the virus.
Their spiky, protruding shape makes them easy to identify but also easy to irritate. They catch on towels, clothing, and razors, which can cause bleeding or soreness and may spread the virus to nearby skin.
Genital Warts
Genital warts appear as a small bump or group of bumps in the genital area. They can be small or large, raised or flat, and are sometimes described as cauliflower-shaped when they cluster together. Color is typically flesh-toned, making them harder to spot. They’re caused by different strains of HPV than the ones responsible for common or plantar warts and are transmitted through sexual contact.
How to Tell a Wart From Other Growths
The most reliable visual marker for identifying any wart is the pattern of black dots, the clotted blood vessels inside. Moles, skin tags, and corns don’t have these. Warts also disrupt the natural skin lines running across your skin’s surface. If you look at a suspicious bump and your normal skin ridges flow smoothly over it, it’s less likely to be a wart. If the skin lines stop at the edges and the surface looks grainy or textured inside, a wart is more likely.
Warts also tend to have a well-defined border. They feel like a distinct, contained bump rather than gradually blending into the surrounding skin. A skin tag, by contrast, hangs loosely, while a mole is usually smooth, evenly pigmented, and soft to the touch.
What a Healing Wart Looks Like
If you’re treating a wart, the visual changes during healing follow a recognizable pattern. The wart gradually becomes flatter as layers peel away. It lightens in color, and the skin starts to dry and flake off at the surface. Over time, the wart shrinks until it sits level with the surrounding skin.
At this stage, you might see a base that looks like normal skin but still has some black dots or a grainy texture. Treatment isn’t finished yet. The goal is to continue until the black dots and graininess are completely gone and the spot looks identical to the surrounding skin, with normal skin lines running through it uninterrupted. Stopping too early is one of the most common reasons warts return.