Using cocoa butter to prevent and treat stretch marks has been popular for centuries. It is a completely natural and also affordable option for minimizing the appearance of these unsightly lines. However, with so many new products on the market containing highly advanced ingredients, you can’t help but wonder if cocoa butter is still a good choice, and if it works as well as the recent batch of sophisticated creams and lotions.
During pregnancy or sudden weight gain, your skin expands so that it can accommodate your new shape and increased body weight. Skin is elastic to an extent, but beyond a certain limit, the innermost layer of the skin gets torn. This gives a streaked appearance, and burst capillaries give rise to purple or pink lines on the surface, known as stretch marks. With time, the color of these marks change to silvery white. Using creams and lotions such as cocoa butter on your skin before these marks emerge is essential, because once you get stretch marks, it is virtually impossible to completely get rid of them, except surgically.
There are many stretch mark lotions and creams available on the market claiming to be the best, but most of these products are expensive, and in some cases don’t work any better than all natural products such as cocoa butter. Particularly if you are pregnant, you will want to choose something that won’t harm your unborn child.
You can buy a number of creams and lotions that contain cocoa butter as a primary ingredient; user reviews of these products tend to be mixed. In some cases you can’t know if the results (good or bad) were a result of the cream or simply luck. You can check out some of these products and reviews at Amazon.com to compare which one might be most suitable for you. There’s one product there you might consider, Mama Mio Tummy Rub Stretch Mark Butter, which doesn’t contain cocoa butter but has a high customer satisfaction rating.
You can also make up your own cocoa butter concoction, combining a number of ingredients that are all useful for moisturizing and maintaining skin elasticity. Simply mix some cocoa butter with any or all of the following: aloe vera gel, olive oil, vitamin A and vitamin E. Apply this mixture liberally twice every day, particularly after your bath or shower so moisture is sealed in to your skin.
If you choose to use cocoa butter to prevent stretch marks, you need to start using it from the first trimester, and continue right up until delivery. Keeping the skin well hydrated in this way helps it to retain its elasticity, stimulates the growth of collagen, and makes it less vulnerable to damage. This is the only truly effective way to prevent stretch marks from forming. As your skin expands, one of the results is itching, and cocoa butter creams can also help relieve this itchiness.
Cocoa butter can be an effective tool to help prevent stretch marks, but you have to make sure you are doing everything possible to keep the scars from appearing. Eat a well-balanced diet, drink lots of water so you stay well hydrated, and exercise regularly.