Want clear, youthful skin? There are only 3 ingredients you need to look out for, says aesthetic nurse Mike Clague


Forget $200 department store serums that read like a third year biochem textbook. According to aesthetic nurse Mike Clague, of Melbourne's Ashley Centre, keeping skin in mint, pretty-young-thing condition is deceptively simple.


“You only need three products,” assures the author of new e-book 7 Steps To Radiant Skin (free at artistrie.com.au).


Vitamin C, or L-ascorbic acid, is an antioxidant, which effectively stops skin from “rusting” when exposed to daylight, vitamin A stimulates the body's own production of new collagen, and a sunscreen that blocks both UVA and UVB rays thwarts the biggest wrinkle-inducer – sun.


The tricky bit is dodging the women in steam-pressed white cotton en route to the shoe department.


“The quantities of active ingredients in store-bought skin care products are much lower than those you’ll find at clinics,” Clague says. If it's namby-pamby enough to be with the lippies, it’s probably not going to plump up much more than your credit card statement.