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Knowledgegasm Reveals Celebs' Stretch Marks and Stage Addiction; Plus, Reality Bugs!
by Leslie Gornstein | Oct. 16, 2004
How do stars avoid stretch marks after childbirth? Is there a certain cream they use, or are they just the lucky ones?
Megan Blanchard, Ottawa
Careful, Reese, or you'll get stretch marks on your teeth, too.
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A.B. Replies: The research is in. Pardon me while I deal with the shock.
In a place where money can buy anything--including more money--skin doctors here in Hollywood insist that nothing can completely erase stretch marks. Nothing. Not harp-seal placentas, not Kabbalah, not Kérastase shampoo, not a night with Colin Farrell.
Let's savor this moment a little longer. Once a star's chamois-smooth skin has widened beyond its contractual obligations, the lower layers of her derma explode in tiny tantrums of outrage, and up come the perpetual crinkle-paper inscriptions of doom. It works just like it does here on Earth.
So, as soon as the stick turns blue, the star usually gets right to work on preventative measures. She gets herself to the spa, or on the phone with her publicist, who tries to scare up some free moisturizers. Doctors do say microdermabrasion--Angeleno for "scrubbing"--and some creams can enhance the belly's elasticity enough to give it more of a fighting chance against scarring.
Examples: Recently preggers Gwyneth Paltrow is a reported client of the Elemis Day Spa in London. The Japanese camellia oil there is rumored to prevent stretch marks. So is Crème de la Mer's Body Serum, but it goes for $150 at Neiman's. So, you can either avoid stretch marks or send your unborn to college.
Make no mistake. Pregnant celebrities pray feverishly to their gauzy, Swarovski-crystal-encrusted gods that these skin treatments work. Once stretch marks appear, they usually stay; they're family now. Well, the stretch marks and those squalling proto-princess larva babies of theirs.
Supermodel Niki Taylor has twins, and she claims to have a stretch mark or two.
"I did the whole oil and lotion thing to try to keep [the stretch marks] off, but I just got too big," Taylor told People in 1997. She even tried laser surgery, a popular postpartum strategy, but said the procedure made the marks worse.
The only other alternative: Call someone like surgeon-to-the-stars Dr. George Orloff, drop about $8,000 and have your entire thorax recarved.
"In Hollywood, a lot of women, after pregnancy, want a mini tummy tuck," Orloff tells this B!tch. "They have stretch marks around their breasts and belly area, and the tuck gets a lot of that skin removed--cutting out the stretch marks."
All that said: If you believe what big actresses like Reese Witherspoon and Kate Winslet say (do you eat soap, too?), then there are plenty of A-listers with all kinds of untouched birthing scars.
"I have cellulite, I have stretch marks," Witherspoon told the Evening Standard earlier this year. "My breasts are not what they were before I breastfed two children. If I ever have to do a
bikini scene, it will become a caftan scene."
Promise?
Alice x
I would suggest if you are planning to expose them to the sun, you do it very carefully, as they are afterall damaged skin.
x