Consumer preference of products for the prevention and treatment of stretch marks
ABSTRACT
Background:
Striae distensae, or stretch marks, is a common and distressing condition affecting females two and a half times more frequently than males. Despite the numerous products and ingredients available, there are limited studies regarding consumer preference of products for stretch mark prevention and treatment.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to determine consumer preferences for products for the prevention and treatment of stretch marks depending on product vehicle and listed ingredients.
Methods:
A search on the internet retailer Amazon.com in January 2020 was conducted for products related to “stretch mark.” The top products were sorted out by reviews and ratings. The products were determined to be either stretch mark specific, including “stretch mark” in either the title or product description, or non-stretch mark specific. Price, rating, type of vehicle, and specific ingredients were analyzed. Then, the types of vehicles and ingredients of the two product groups were analyzed with two-sample proportions test to determine if certain vehicles or products were more inclined to be indicated for stretch marks. P<.05 indicated statistical significance.
Results:
Out of over 10,000 products, the top 184 products were determined by more than 100 reviews and rating of 4 or more. 36.4% of products (67 of 184) were non-stretch mark specific. The most popular vehicle overall was oils, consisting of 71.2% of overall products (131 of 184), while vitamin E was one of the most popular ingredients, consisting of 31.5% of overall products (58 of 184). Comparing the stretch mark specific and non-stretch mark specific products, oil (P<.05), as a vehicle, was more likely to be stretch mark specific. Olive oil (P<.05) and cocoa butter (P<.05), collagen (P<.01), and shea butter (P<.01) were ingredients more likely to be included in stretch mark specific products.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrated that there are vast amounts of products available for stretch mark prevention and/or treatment and found specific ingredients to be preferred by customers. However, there are limited studies on the effectiveness of major ingredients in “stretch mark” prevention and/or removal products. Further studies can focus on effectiveness of ingredients currently preferred by consumers.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.