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Ingredient Beauty Benefits

Skin concerns

Stretch marks

The streaked marks left where skin has been stretched.

The first thing to separate with stretch marks is prevention from treatment. They are different questions, and the evidence behind them differs in thickness.

Prevention — this is where the creams applied during pregnancy sit. The market is large; the Cochrane review included one trial of 100 women.

Treatment — dealing with marks that already exist, mostly through procedures. Here the colour matters.

  • Red stretch marks (striae rubra) — the early stage, while the vessels are still live. Vascular laser and carboxytherapy aim at this stage.
  • White stretch marks (striae alba) — the colour has gone with time, and they are far harder to reverse.

A stretch mark is a tear in the dermis. It is not a problem of the stratum corneum or of pigment but of broken structure, which puts this concern further from 'make it go away' than most others on this site. What the trials measure is usually how much it faded, not whether it disappeared.

Moderate evidenceBarrier lipid

Stretch mark creams (pregnancy prevention)

An ingredient class — not a single line on an ingredient list

The Cochrane review included one trial of 100 women, testing a cream containing Centella asiatica, alpha tocopherol and collagen-elastin hydrolysates. In a larger 2013 placebo-controlled trial, overall incidence was 33.3% in the control group and 37.6% in the cream group — not significantly different, and numerically higher with the cream.

Clinical procedures related to this concern

Procedures are not listed alongside topical ingredients. They are not something you use at home.