MIAMI – We put our skin through a lot: from the sun to chemicals we use to stay "looking younger."
But all that wear and tear can lead to unsightly scarring.
Now, however, there's a new approach that can virtually erase scars. The technique uses needles and a little bit of paint.
Two-year-old Ayden has given his mom a lot of things, including love, laughter and the joy of parenthood. And the little guy also left Jacinta Haynes with a tummy lined with stretch marks.
"When I go out, I have to hide my stomach because I don't want to show my stomach because of my stretch marks," Haynes said.
Stretch marks occur because the body is growing faster than the skin can keep up with.
The desire to diminish her stretch marks brought Haynes to Linda Dunn-Carter, an esthetician and tattoo artist who uses tiny needles and paint to smooth out scars and camouflage their appearance.
"I got into this because I have a passion for people and I want to help them look beautiful. I want them to feel beautiful about themselves," Dunn-Carter said. "Once a scar develops, it's very hard to reverse."
Dermatologist Martin Zaiac is enthusiastic about the new technique because it can also work for acne scars and surgical scars.
"I go underneath the skin. I snap the bands of tissue and it releases the scar tissue so it has room for the collagen to regenerate and plump areas, as it does become flat," Zaiac said.
The concept is that your skin has its own memory and can be reprogrammed to repair itself. Tattooing is a way to blend it all together.
If the scar is white or if it's hypo-pigmented, then the artist adds color to match the flesh tones. The process takes several months to flatten the scars and slowly get the right pigmentation, but the results can be life-changing.
Haynes hopes by sometime this summer she can feel confident in a more revealing bathing suit.
The cost to erase scars is about $3,000, but it depends on the extent of scarring.