(FORTUNE Magazine) – You diet and exercise until model-thin, but the cellulite on your thighs remains. Can you find help in a bottle? Perhaps. Christian Dior's new cellulite remedy, Svelte, is causing a stampede at cosmetics counters. Launched in the U.S. five months ago with an alluring ad campaign and priced at $48 for a 6.8-ounce bottle, Svelte is selling briskly even in college towns, where you'd think demand would be slight. Dior's revised 1994 sales forecast is 500,000 bottles, up from 300,000. Svelte's success is spilling over to competitors. Sales of cellulite potions from Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, Clarins, and mass marketers have all increased since Svelte arrived. Is Svelte a genuine remedy? Some industry watchers wonder if it's not just bottled hope, but Dior reports that four out of ten sales are repeats. Says industry guru Allan Mottus, editor of the Informationist, a cosmetics newsletter: "That percentage is better than good.'' Another hot bottled product: tans. Fears of the harmful effects of the sun have pulled more people into the shade, where they flaunt store-bought golden skin. This includes guys: Halston Borghese's Nautica self-tanner is marketed to men who want a healthy look year-round. John Stabenau, vice president in charge of cosmetics at Neiman Marcus, predicts a 50% sales increase for self- tanning products at his stores this year. Gone are the orange streaks that once betrayed bottled tans. Instead, manufacturers are producing convincing shades, available in fast-drying sprays, lotions, and creams, to complement any skin tone. Este Lauder offers four of them: light, medium, dark, and very dark.

The big players among lipstick makers are also rolling out ever more varieties in the battle for market share. Lancome, Lauder, Arden, and Borghese offer a dazzling display of 100-plus shades each, in formulas ranging from supershiny to rich opaques. Says Margaret Sharkey, senior vice president for marketing at Lancome: "We constantly search for the perfect combination of color and formula.''

With U.S. sales up 50% this year, Dior, a subsidiary of France's LVMH, is the big market-share winner. It charges about $18 a tube. The most expensive lipsticks, Chanel's, run up to $36. Total industry sales crept up a mere 4%, according to Allan Mottus.