Easy Fresh Anti Marks Cream 18gm

• Colour first, texture barely. Retinol, niacinamide and ascorbyl glucoside work on how dark a mark is, not on the dent.
• Built for the body and the flat of the face. Hips, thighs, upper arms, cheeks, jaw. Not the eye contour, and not on broken skin.
• Retinol is the strongest thing in it. It sits eighth, above the plant oils, which is why this needs introducing slowly rather than nightly.
• A comfortable base under a strong active. Shea butter, avocado, rosehip and hyaluronic acid are there to make the retinol survivable.
• Eighteen grams is a small-area jar. Enough for two patches of stretch marks over three months. Not a whole-body product.

Twenty-five ingredients, and four decide where this jar can go.

Retinol — The reason the eye contour is out, and the reason this works at all. Introduce it slowly: two nights a week, then build.

Sandalwood oil — A scented plant oil in a leave-on cream. It smells good, and it is one of the commoner contact sensitisers among essential oils.

Coenzyme Q10 — An antioxidant your cells already make. Reasonable evidence as a general skin antioxidant, very little specifically on marks or scars.

Phenoxyethanol — The only declared preservative, holding a jar that also contains honey, papaya and avocado. That is a lot for one ingredient.

Two things to be straight about. This is not an eye cream, whatever it is searched alongside — retinol, an essential oil, fragrance and a dye are four separate reasons. And no cream removes a stretch mark; the mark is a tear in the deeper layer and a topical does not reach it. What creams reach is colour, which is why red and brown marks respond and silver ones mostly do not. Our body lotion for stretch marks covers that in full.

Full ingredients: Aqua, Petroleum Jelly, Bees Wax, Ceto Stearyl Alcohol, Glycol Monostearate, Steareth 20, Acetyl Hexapeptide-8, Retinol, Coenzyme Q10, Niacinamide, Dark Out, Aloe Barbadiensis, Ascorbyl Glucoside, Sandalwood Oil, Rosehip Oil, Shea Butter, Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamin E, Phenoxyethanol, Vitamin E Beads, Fragrance, Avocado Oil, Honey Extract, Papaya Extract & Cl 19140.

1. Start on two nights a week for the first fortnight, then three, then nightly if your skin is comfortable.
2. Use it on clean, completely dry skin. Damp skin drives retinol in faster and stinging follows.
3. Work a small amount into the marked area for a full minute. The rubbing matters as much as the cream.
4.  Keep it a full finger’s width away from the eye socket, and off the eyelids entirely.
5. Sunscreen every morning on any area you can see. Retinol and marks both worsen with sun.

Expect eight to twelve weeks before colour shifts. Stop if skin flakes for several days.

Can a cream remove stretch marks completely?

No, and anything promising it is overselling. A stretch mark is a tear in the dermis healed with disorganised collagen, and a cream sits far above that layer. What a good one changes is colour, so a red or brown mark fades towards your skin tone.

Can I use it under my eyes for dark circles?

We would not. It contains retinol, sandalwood oil, fragrance and a colourant, and eyelid skin is the thinnest on your body. Dark circles also have three causes and only one is pigment. Our vitamin C ampoule was written for that question and is formulated for the eye area.

Will it help with burn scars?

On the colour, sometimes. A healed burn that has left a brown or pink patch can even out over months. A raised or contracted scar will not change from a cream, and a burn that is still healing should be seen by a doctor rather than treated with a retinol product. Wait until the skin is fully closed and settled.

What are the vitamin E beads for?

Visible beads suspended in the cream that burst as you rub it in, releasing vitamin E into the same cream you are already applying. They look good in the jar. Functionally they add a little antioxidant, and that is all — treat them as texture rather than a reason to buy.

What is ‘Dark Out’ on the ingredient list?

A supplier trade name, not an INCI name, so we cannot tell you what is in it. We have flagged it for the manufacturer, as we did with the same kind of entry on the Yusma Anti Marks Cream. Until it is identified, patch test on a small area before you commit to using this over a large one.

How do I know if it is working?

Photograph the area on day one in the same light, then again at six weeks and twelve. Marks fade slowly enough that day-to-day comparison tells you nothing, and the light in a bathroom changes more than your skin does. If nothing has shifted in colour by twelve weeks of consistent use, it is not going to.

My skin is flaking. What should I do?

Drop back to two nights a week and apply a plain moisturiser on the off nights. Flaking in the first fortnight is normal with retinol; flaking that continues past a month means the frequency is wrong for your skin. Never push through it — irritated skin darkens rather than lightens, which is the opposite of what you want.

Can I use it while pregnant?

Ask your doctor first. Topical retinoids are routinely avoided in pregnancy as a precaution, and retinol sits eighth here. Since stretch mark creams are bought most often by people pregnant, postpartum or trying, this matters more than on most products.