From Alice Hart-Davies Reporter Dail Mail 17th August 2011

Although it€™s summer, for the past few weeks I€™ve been wearing a pair of black leggings with a dedication bordering on obsession. But let me explain €” these are no ordinary leggings. Every now and again, a pair of €˜magic€™ leggings hits our shelves, with claims to eliminate cellulite.

I€™ve tried most of them: the ones with the double-layered mesh that massages your thighs as you move; those with €˜fat-busting€™ ingredients bound into their fabric; and the ones with the waffle-like insides meant to improve circulation in the solidified, cellulite-ridden tissues of the backside and thighs (and thus slim them down).

But, frustratingly, none of them has produced a visible result. 

Alice says that although she has tried 'magic' leggings, with claims to eliminate cellulite in the past, none of them has produced a visible result

So when I was asked to assess the new Proskins leggings, I suppressed an inward sigh. €˜These things are all rubbish,€™ I warned the publicist. €˜I won€™t have a good word to say about them.€™

But then she began telling me the how and  why, and added for good measure that word  of mouth is already making them an online sell-out. I was intrigued.

Proskins may look like a normal, if rather shiny, pair of black leggings, but their pedigree is very different. The company has been making technical sportswear for years and specialises in the compression leggings and  T-shirts worn by elite sportsmen to enhance muscle-recovery after exercise.

Miracle workers? The Proskins leggings

Post-sport compression-wear works in a similar way to socks designed to combat deep vein thrombosis when flying, or the stockings given to  people after operations to assist blood circulation while they€™re in a hospital. The fabric exerts a gentle, comfortable squeeze on the limbs to improve blood flow and enhance lymphatic drainage.

The new €˜slim€™ version of the leggings contains anti-cellulite ingredients, including caffeine (to boost circulation), retinol (to improve skin tone), and aloe vera (for skin-softening). These are packed into microscopic capsules and woven tightly into the yarn.

I rather doubted these ingredients would be able to exert any influence on the skin €” or the cellulite beneath it €” but have been shown clinical data to the contrary. Moreover, if you wear them for eight hours a day, for 28 days, trials have shown that you should lose 2cm from your waist and thighs. That did it. I grabbed a pair, put them on and €” three weeks later €” have hardly taken them off.

And what have I found? Once they are on, you hardly notice them, not least because their temperature-regulating fabric means that if it€™s cold, they will hold a little more moisture and help warm you up, and if it€™s hot, they will whisk moisture away from your skin to cool you down.

Three days after first putting them on, I set off with my family on a driving trip round Europe. At first they laughed, then feared for my sanity as I kept the leggings on, even as the temperature climbed to 30 degrees €” I hid them under a maxi-sun-dress.They simply didn€™t believe me when I said I wasn€™t hot.

Something I soon noticed about the Proskins was their anti-water-retention effect, which meant frequent trips to the loo in the first few days. They also make your legs feel peculiarly light.

I don€™t have a job that keeps me on my feet all day, nor do I suffer from heavy-feeling legs. But I can imagine that if you did, these would be a godsend. Also, they make your skin feel smooth, as if you€™ve been using a moisturiser, even when you haven€™t.

And even if you exercise hard and sweat like mad into them, they don€™t get whiffy €” thanks, apparently, to the anti-bacterial silver bound into their yarn €” in fact, you need to wash them only once a fortnight.

I swear they€™re smoothing out the dimples at the backs of my thighs, too, even though my holiday diet of pizza, ice cream and vino frizzante means I€™m certainly not getting any slimmer (alas, no garment, however high-tech, is proof against sheer gluttony).

But, once I€™m home, I€™ll be  back to my healthy-eating regime in pursuit of that other benefit noted by 67 per cent of the  trial group €” looser jeans within  a month. And at least with the changeable €˜summer€™ in Britain, I won€™t be teased about wearing leggings long before winter sets in.

Proskins Slim, from £40 for cycle-shorts, to £50 for leggings,

Now available at PlanetGolfuk.co.uk