It's hard times for everyone. While the economy might have you and me putting off plans for the ski vacation or bathroom remodel, another kind of person is having to hold off on those shiny new breasts or their dream nose.


Yep. It's an ugly reality, indeed. Plastic surgeons around the country are reporting that their business has sagged along with the economic downturn.

Steven Hopping, president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and director of the Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Washington D.C. told U.S.A. Today., "We're seeing patients who are balking, postponing and canceling their appointments and surgeries."
Surgeons who used to brag that they had six-month-long waiting lists are now happy to see clients in as little as a few weeks, according to a piece this summer in the NY Times.

More folks so inclined to beautify themselves through surgical means are opting for less expensive, less invasive methods. A shot of Botox, for example, the toxic substance used to erase lines in your forehead or around your eyes, costs between $300-$650. A surgical forehead lift will set you back $11,000 (but make you look ten years younger.)

It's hard to decide which is more important: your mortgage or your face. I suppose if you're an aging actress or model, the answer is obviously the latter. But then most of those women (or their attendant sugar daddies) can afford the mortgage already. On the other hand, perhaps holding off on plastic surgery might save a marriage. The sad tale of socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein (pictured) is a case in point.

She is rumored to have spent millions on plastic surgery in the hopes of keeping her millionaire husband interested in her. Alas, the poor man is rumored to have screamed when he first saw his surgically enhanced wife, who was by all accounts a beautiful woman before going under the knife.

A lot of cut-back in the wrong area, in her case.