The words used on this site, defined plainly. Two of them do most of the work: striae rubrae and striae albae are the clinical names for red marks and white ones, and almost everything a clinic can honestly tell you depends on which of the two you have.
Also known as: Stretch marks, Striae.
The clinical name for stretch marks. They are scars formed when the dermis is stretched faster than its elastic fibres can adapt and tears. The repaired tear is thinner and differently structured from the skin around it, which is why it catches the light differently.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Red stretch marks, Early stretch marks.
Early stretch marks: red or purple, sometimes raised, sometimes itchy. The colour comes from blood vessels visible through thinned skin. They still contain an active repair process, which is why they respond considerably better to treatment than mature marks do.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: White stretch marks, Mature stretch marks.
Mature stretch marks: white or silver, flat or slightly depressed below the surrounding skin. The dermis under them is thinned and much less active. They are the harder of the two types to improve and the type most people are asking about.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Pregnancy stretch marks.
Stretch marks that appear during pregnancy, most often across the abdomen and sometimes the breasts and thighs. They affect a large majority of pregnant people. Elective treatment is normally postponed until after pregnancy and breastfeeding have finished.
Source: www.nhs.uk
The layer of skin beneath the visible surface, holding the collagen, the elastic fibres, the blood supply and the cells that maintain them. Stretch marks form here rather than on the surface, which is the single reason topical products applied to the surface achieve so little.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Elastin fibres.
The protein network that lets skin stretch and spring back. They are laid down mostly in youth and are poorly replaced once broken. A stretch mark is what is left where they were pulled apart faster than they could reorganise.
The cell in the dermis that manufactures collagen and elastic fibres. Treatments for stretch marks work by provoking fibroblasts into activity, which is why any real change takes weeks to appear and why early marks, which still have active fibroblasts, respond better.
Thinning of the dermis. It is what gives a mature stretch mark its slightly sunken feel and its pale colour, and reversing some of it is what every collagen-stimulating treatment is actually attempting.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A scar that sits below the level of the surrounding skin because tissue was lost or never rebuilt. Mature stretch marks are atrophic scars, which is the category they share with some acne scarring and why similar devices are used on both.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A scar that overgrows beyond the boundary of the original injury. A history of keloid scarring matters before any needling or laser treatment, because both create controlled injuries and the same tendency can apply to them.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A laser that treats the skin in columns rather than as a continuous sheet, leaving untreated tissue between them. Healing is quicker because the untreated skin does the repairing, and the collagen laid down in the columns is what thickens a stretch mark.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Laser treatment that removes the surface layer of skin as well as heating the dermis. It does more per session than a non-ablative device and it costs more downtime, more aftercare and more pigmentation risk in darker skin.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Laser treatment that heats the dermis while leaving the surface intact. Each session does less than an ablative one and recovery is a day or two, so a course is longer. It is the usual choice when somebody cannot take visible downtime.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A laser tuned to be absorbed by blood rather than by tissue generally, used to reduce the red in early stretch marks. It does nothing useful for white marks, because there is no longer any red for it to target.
Also known as: Collagen induction therapy.
Hundreds of fine controlled punctures made into the dermis, provoking a healing response that lays down new collagen. It is cheaper than laser and carries a lower pigmentation risk in darker skin, which makes it a common first choice on body skin.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Microneedling with heat delivered through insulated needle tips at a set depth, so the remodelling happens deeper in the dermis while the surface is spared. On established white marks it generally does more than plain needling, and it costs more and hurts more.
A six-point scale describing how skin responds to sunlight, from always burns to never burns. It is the scale a practitioner should use before choosing a device and its settings, because pigmentation risk rises considerably at the darker end of it.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: PIH.
Darkening of skin after inflammation or injury, including injury caused by a treatment. It is the commonest avoidable complication of laser on darker skin, it can last months, and sun exposure in the weeks after treatment makes it considerably more likely.
Source: www.nhs.uk
A small test area treated in advance to see how your skin reacts before a device is used across a large one. On body treatment for stretch marks it is not optional, and a clinic willing to skip it has told you something useful about itself.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Paramedical tattooing, Camouflage tattooing.
Permanent pigment implanted into a pale mark to bring it closer to the surrounding skin tone. It changes nothing about the tissue and can still produce the largest visible change for old white marks. It needs a patch test and a practitioner who does this specific work.
Heavily pigmented, water-resistant makeup matched to your skin tone and applied at home, lasting a day or two at a time. It is available free through a long-established charity referral route in the United Kingdom and is frequently left out of clinic advice.
Source: www.nhs.uk
Also known as: Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners.
A voluntary register of non-surgical cosmetic practitioners and premises in the United Kingdom. Registration is not a legal requirement, which is exactly why checking it is worth your time in a sector that is otherwise lightly regulated.
Source: www.jccp.org.uk
The service that takes an enquiry from this site and arranges an assessment with a registered practitioner. It is operated by the UNTIL group, which owns this site. Nobody here treats anybody, and no payment passes per enquiry.