I have to admit the first time I heard about tummy tuck jeans I thought it was a joke. "What? Jeans designed to flatten your stomach and smooth out your butt? Are you kidding me?" It sounded like a Sunday morning infomercial gone completely wrong.

And then I did a little bit of research and found out that a lot of women were quite excited about these jeans. Not only celebrities like Rachel Ray, Oprah, and Diane Sawyer--but regular women just like myself who simply have a hard time finding a comfortable pair of jeans that don't make us feel self-conscious.

I don't know about you but I don't fit into the jeans the way I once did in high school or even college. Especially those crazy low-rise jeans. By the time you find a pair that fits, nothing quite ends up where it supposed to be! You either feel like your pants are going to fall down or your back end is going to pop out whenever you do anything but walk in a straight line.

Of course it seems like the only other alternative is a pair of elastic granny jeans and I'm not quite ready for those just yet! A woman by the name of Lisa Rudes Sandel was also having that same problem when one day she noticed she didn't quite fit into her regular size six jeans anymore.

Sandel is the mastermind behind Not Your Daughter's Jeans, the leading company making tummy tuck jeans today. When she had to go three sizes bigger to find a pair of jeans that fit she knew she had to something. She says, "They were uncomfortable, and they felt like they would fall down. I wondered, 'Why isn't someone making nice, hip jeans for women with a figure like mine?"

Lisa Rudes Sandel first came up with the idea of tummy tuck jeans when she just couldn't find a pair of good-looking jeans that were comfortable and fit properly. Her company, Not Your Daughter's Jeans, launched over seven years ago and since then has become the largest United States manufacturer of women's jeans that cost $100 or less.

To her credit, Sandel does know a thing or two about selling and marketing jeans. Her father George was the mastermind behind Saint Germain jeans, a women's sportswear company that was popular in the 70s. In fact, NYDJ was more or less a family project. Sandel and her sister Leslie recruited help not only from their father but also from their brother Kenny who worked at denim company in Mexico.

While the Sandel sisters had experience on the business side of working for a apparel company the design aspect was breaking new ground. Lisa had a lightbulb moment when she thought about the best way to design a comfortable pair of jeans what would also flatter any figure.

During a recent interview for Reader's Digest magazine she talks about fabric recovery. She says, "You know when you wear certain things and the knees get stretched out? That's because there's not enough recovery in the fabric."

After many months of brainstorming sessions Lisa settled on 4 percent lycra for the material of her new jeans. Most jeans contain 0 to 2 percent lycra. Lisa states that it's the extra 0-4 percent of lycra that "sculpts you and gives you the appearance of a lifted derriere." Lisa also states that because of the extra give Lycra offers, most women are able to wear a size or two smaller than they normally would. If you'd like to know where to buy tummy tuck jeans they are usually sold in most local speciality and apparel boutique shops. However, there are also many websites which sell tummy tuck jeans online.

So are tummy tuck jeans a marketing gimmick or a fashion miracle? They only way to know for sure is to try a pair on for yourself . . .