The iVillage guide to cosmetic surgery

Tummy tuck (abdominoplasty)
Approximate cost: £3,500-£4,500

How it works: This is designed to tuck away unsightly rolls of skin. A large incision is made from hip bone to hip bone, then the skin is lifted up. 'It's rather like going under the bedsheets,' says Professor Sharpe. The fat underneath is cut out all the way up to the ribs, around the tummy button. Then the loosened skin is pulled tight, so that the piece of skin that was next to your tummy button before moves down to where your pubic hairline was. Finally, the extra skin is discarded. Before that's done though, though, you tighten up the muscles by pleating the fascia, or fibrous tissue, over the muscles to tighten up the abdominal wall.

Effects and side effects: 'Risks include a long scar across the stomach, numbness of the tummy wall and a five per cent chance of infection,' says Sharpe.

Brow lift
Approximate cost: £3,500

How it works: By far the most gruesome-sounding of all cosmetic procedures, this involves making four incisions above the hairline and under the scalp. A small telescope (endoscope) is used to work under the surface of the skin, lifting it off the bone. Skin is then pulled upwards and fixed into place with small screws in the skull for two to three weeks. They are removed once the skin has reset itself in its new position. Risks are minimal, and scarring is usually obscured by hair.

Eye lift (blepharoplasty)
Approximate cost: £2,000-£3,000

How it works: After a long night out, you may think the only way to get rid of those bags is by resorting to surgery. And since gravity will always have its evil way, eye bags tend to get worse with age. With upper-eye surgery, the incision runs along the crease in the eyelid from the inner aspect of the eye to about a centimetre