Anti-wrinkle serum proven

The good news: A beauty serum costing a modest $50 yesterday became the first scientifically proven wrinkle killer.

The bad: New Zealanders will have to twist the arm of friends or relatives in England to ship it for them, or rely on international eBay auctions.

Boots the Chemist has stockpiled warehouses in Britain full of No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum in anticipation of the release of an independent evaluation of the product.

Manchester University researchers tested the cream on 60 volunteers with typical signs of sun-damaged skin. Results of the randomised double-blind controlled trial, the first of a skin-care product, showed 70 per cent had significantly fewer wrinkles after 12 months of daily use compared with those using a placebo.

The study was published in the British Journal of Dermatology, and Boots is braced for an onslaught by women demanding the new elixir.

The cream, which comes in two versions, standard and "intense", triggered near-riots among shoppers when, in March 2007, a BBC Horizon documentary revealed initial laboratory tests showed it worked better than more expensive creams.

Boots sold almost 6 million tubes in the nine months after the programme.

The cream, which contains white lupin, retinyl parmitate, a derivative of retinol (Vitamin A), and peptides and anti-oxidants, is thought to work by stimulating production of fibrillin - essential to the structure of the skin in the same way tent pegs hold a groundsheet smooth. Fibrillin is destroyed by the effects of the sun and ageing.

The British Association of Dermatologists has said the size of the benefit has been exaggerated.

- INDEPENDENT