Stretchmarks are usually an indicator of rapid-growth and once created, they are permenant. You can buy into those ads and use all the "Snake-Oil" products in the world, the stretchmarks will only fade, they never go away completely. The darker the skin pigmentation the more noticable they become. I knew a woman whose stomach looked like it was mauled by a bear, She had so many stretchmarks from her preganancy, she talked about laser treatments to get rid of them.