Lipo in a Jar.(cellulite cream)

Lipo in a Jar

Cellulite is like the common cold -- benign and unpleasant, unavoidable yet incurable. Do the latest creams finally offer the solution? By Cara Birnbaum

A year and a half ago, 32-year-old Marta Ramos read an article about a new cream that claimed to dissolve cellulite. "I think the words they used were 'eats fat' -- and when you read something like that, you think, Oh, my God," says Ramos, who dashed out to buy two $50 bottles of Shiseido's Body Creator. "I was skeptical but intrigued," says the high-school programs director. Within two weeks, she swears, her pants felt looser and her dimpled thighs looked smoother. When asked whether she knows how Body Creator works, she answers vaguely, "Not really -- maybe caffeine or something?" Ramos isn't the only one patting her thighs and scratching her head. For most women, peering intently into the bathroom mirror is the only way to determine how well a cellulite cream works. Companies make big promises that their products will "reduce the appearance of cellulite up to 60 to 80 percent," and their packages boast seductive phrases like "perfecting complex" and ...