3 At-Home Cellulite Treatments
What this video covers
This 2019 segment from The Dr. Oz Show tackles cellulite — the dimpled skin appearance that the show notes affects the vast majority of adult women — and asks which at-home treatments actually work. Rather than Oz opining alone, the segment brings in dermatologist Dr. Dendy Engelman to explain three popular remedies: microneedling, caffeine creams, and dry brushing.
Engelman walks through how each treatment is supposed to work and, crucially, how effective she considers each to be at reducing the appearance of cellulite — the careful phrasing matters, since the segment frames these as cosmetic improvements rather than cures. The format is the show’s classic expert-demo: a physician guest, plain-language explanations, and a verdict-style ranking viewers could act on at home.
Three audience members demonstrate the treatments they tried. On caffeine creams, Engelman is the most positive: she says there is “real science behind it” — caffeine dehydrates fat cells, shrinking them, with an effect similar to making the fat cell smaller. On microneedling, she explains the mechanism as a controlled, concentrated injury to the skin that stimulates the body’s own collagen and elastin production, thickening the skin to resist the fat bulging beneath; the home device tested also includes light-emitting diodes meant to work synergistically with the needling. Earlier, Oz used a model to explain the core mechanism of cellulite itself: fibrous bands tether skin to the muscle and fascia below, and fat cells bulge up between them to create the dimpling — which is why losing weight doesn’t reliably eliminate it, even in thin people.
Posted May 19, 2019, the clip has drawn nearly two million views, making it one of the channel’s most-watched dermatology segments from the show’s later seasons.
Key points
- Dermatologist Dr. Dendy Engelman — not Oz — is the expert voice in the segment, explaining each treatment’s mechanism.
- The three treatments covered are microneedling, caffeine creams, and dry brushing.
- Engelman assesses how each works and how effective it is at reducing the appearance of cellulite, per the segment description.
- The segment frames the goal as cosmetic improvement (“reducing the appearance”) rather than eliminating cellulite.
- The expert-guest format is typical of the show’s later seasons: Oz hosts, a specialist delivers the substantive assessment.