Our Quest To Be Perfect

Earlier this summer, Erica Barrow, a 24-year-old Chicago waitress, took full advantage. She was desperate to blast away minuscule acne marks and a small scar on her face, but she didn't have $4,425 for laser resurfacing. Her surgeon happily hooked her up with a local cosmetic loan company, Unicorn Financial, which helped her work out a plan. Barrow used $500 she earned in tips as a down payment, then took out the rest in a $178-per-month loan.

For some patients, cosmetic surgery has become about as routine as an annual checkup. Dr. Gerald Imber, a New York plastic surgeon, recommends that his patients begin small "maintenance" procedures--removing fat in the neck, eliminating worry lines--somewhere between 35 and 45 before sags and wrinkles make major headway. Forget the face-lift at 50. "The idea of waiting until one needs a heroic transformation is silly," says Imber. "You've wasted 20 great years of life and you've allowed things to get out of hand."

Kelly Sue Evans, just 24, has already gotten that message. She's taking full advantage of the Cosmetic Surgery and Laser Center where she works as an administrative assistant at a strip mall in suburban Boston. She's had collagen injections to pump up her lips, liposuction to attack "diet-resistant fat" and dermabrasion "power peels" that blast away old skin with tiny bits of silica. "People tell me, 'You're too young, you don't need it'," says Evans. "But I don't want to have that leathery look when I get older."

For baby boomers, who account for more than 40 percent of the market, liposuction and eye lifts have become accepted as a generational rite of passage. They want to live to 100--but refuse to age past 35. Last year, Mary DiPirro, 40, of suburban Chicago paid $2,500 for what she calls an "insurance policy" against the ravages of time. Her secret weapon: a jar of fat cells sucked from her very own thighs and tummy, which now sits in her dermatologist's office freezer. Every two months or so, during her lunch break from her job as a nanny, DiPirro sneaks out for a dose--two to three teaspoons injected into her cheeks to plump them back to youth. "It's so easy," she says. "It's like a trip to the dentist."

Many boomers say they feel pressure to keep up appearances to keep their jobs. Mary Bentley, 43, a global-marketing manager at IBM in Dallas, was just a size 6 when she decided to have liposuction on the back of her thighs about a year ago. "People judge you by the way you look, dress and talk," she says. When Bentley noticed fine lines forming on her face, she marched back to her doctor for a shot of Botox, a toxin that temporarily paralyzes frown muscles. Now, Bentley says she feels "more competitive in the job market... If I get to the point where I want to get a face-lift, you bet I'll do it."