I have a stretching / cellulite / unsure-what-it-is skin problem and I'm only a teenager! Across my hips and butt, I have raised lines that are darker than the rest of the surrounding skin -- they almost looks like scars. The marks are less than a pencil's width and are 1.5 to 2 inches long and spread across both my butt cheeks following the same pattern for the most part. I have a tan complexion and these marks are reddish-brown in color. I'm roughly 105 pounds, don't exercise actively, and I'm looking for a way to get rid of these marks. I'm very worried about them, especially since I live in an area where you go swimming everyday in the summer. I definitely don't want to go about wearing a bikini with marks like these. Do you have any products or exercises I could use to reduce or get rid of these?
Thanks, Another self-conscious teen
Dear Self-Conscious,
First of all (**don't freak**), what you're describing sounds like stretch marks. Despite the reputation, stretch marks aren't necessarily a sign of weight gain. It's simply the sign of skin being stretched and lots of teenage girls get stretchmarks at the joints of their limbs from the simple truth that you're getting taller. Yeah, it sucks, but what sucks even worse is that as a society, we hide and airbrush them away like its something we should be ashamed of. Lots of women have them. Gorgeous young women, like Scarlett Johansson, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, and Paris Hilton. (Related: Should stars take a stand against airbrushing?)
I'm not aware of any exercises that can reduce or prevent stretch marks, but a deficiency in dietary zinc can cause them. Make sure that you're eating a balanced diet and getting lots of water. Also, race and genetics play a huge factor in whether you're going to get them: while fair-haired or fair-skinned women are more likely to develop striae, a survey of women of color found that 80 percent of them had stretch marks, even the younger ladies and women who had never been pregnant.
Now, that doesn't mean that you're cursed. There are lots of creams and lotions on the market that claim to reduce stretch marks, though I've never seen anything that has touched my own legacy from puberty. Of course, it certainly can't hurt anything to make sure that your bod is super supple and moisturized: if stretch marks form because the skin is stretched beyond its elasticity, it would follow that if you improve your skin's elasticity, it will be able to stretch a little better without scarring. However, the only scientifically founded way to get rid of them is by visiting a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. You said that the marks are still raised, so I'm assuming that they are still red, which means that you're a great candidate for knocking those suckers with some Retin-A, which has been found to be effective in diminishing the scarring, or fractional laser resurfacing.
Do stretch mark creams really work or are they just stretching the truth?
There's always the camouflage routine: you can hide the marks pretty well by using a self-tanner (real tans don't touch the stretch marks and can make them stand out, so even MORE reason to wear sunscreen) or using body makeup, like Dermablend's Leg and Body Cover or my favorite (and totally waterproof) Make Up Forever's Full Cover and I've heard MAC's foundation mentioned at least a dozen times when this topic has come up, but I can't vouch for how well it would do on a high friction area like underarms or thighs. Whatever action you decide to take, it's most important to remember that stretch marks happen and they shouldn't prevent you from putting on a bikini and getting out in the sun and surf.
--Wendy
image via womens-fitness-blog.blogspot.com
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