Lunchtime Cosmetic Procedures

Botulinum toxin (botox)

Cost: Around £250 per area treated
How and why: As time marches on, expression lines furrow - except, of course, if you can find a way to avoid scowling, squinting or creasing up at your favourite sitcom. Panned by its critics for wiping the expression clean off your face, Botox literally paralyses facial muscles. Where you choose to put it and how frozen you look (how much you have injected) is up to you.
Time factor: Around 30 minutes, but it'll be a few days before you see a difference.
Pros: Originally used as a medical therapy, it's one of the few procedures that's been around for nearly two decades. One of the only preventative procedures on the market. If you decide it's not for you, it'll wear off in weeks.
Cons: Flu symptoms can occur for a short period and there's a risk that eyebrows or eyelids may droop if badly applied. Go overboard and you'll look like a startled rabbit. Opt for a single area and other muscles can overwork to compensate. Unless you go to town on every muscle and find work as a street-statue, your face will be ageing at different speeds. Groundhog day comes every three months.
Pain: 2/10 (injections to some facial areas can feel a bit tender)

Skin peels

Cost: £100-£800 depending on type of peel
How and why: Like snakes, we humans naturally shed skin to rejuvenate ourselves. Painting on a chemical solution to speed up the peeling process is a sure-fire way to reveal the virginal layer underneath, giving you a glowing (albeit a little raw) complexion.
Time factor: Light peels take around 30 minutes and you can return to work looking just slightly flustered. Deeper peels take a little longer but result in redness, peeling and crusting, so if you're hoping to peel and go (and no-one to know), light is your only option.
Pros: Improvement in skin tone and texture. Can help with acne and scars, hyperpigmentation, discoloration, fine lines, sun damage and patching.
Cons: Can also cause blotching, scabbing, scarring, redness and blistering. Sun exposure isn't recommended for at least a few weeks.
Pain: Varies, depending on strength of peel

Microdermabrasion

Cost: £80-£150 per treatment (course of 6 is usually recommended)
How and why: Like sanding down wood, microdermabrasion is a heavy-duty version of the exfoliation we're all advised to do at home. Micro-particles are blasted at the skin before being hoovered up along with top layers of your weather-worn skin, making room for the younger layers to emerge.
Time factor: 20-30 minutes
Pros: Instant results.
Any redness can be covered with make-up, so no recovery time is needed. You can top it up at home with microdermabrasion kits.
Cons: May irritate sensitive skin Possible blotching, streaking, pigment changes or redness. Sun exposure isn't recommended for a few days afterwards.
Pain factor: 1/10 (mild discomfort as you're sand-blasted with minute crystals)

Radiofrequency skin tightening/thermage

Cost: £1,000-£2,000 for each area treated
How and why: For anyone not up for surrendering their saggy bits to the surgeon's knife, this is a marginally less gory way of tightening skin that's losing its battle with gravity. A radiofrequency current (a bit like a microwave) is passed through the skin to heat up the lower layers, literally cooking the collagen beneath the skin.
Time factor: Around 1 hour
Pros: Helps the appearance of lines, tightens skin and improves collagen production. Can help treat acne or oily skin problems.
Effects last 18 months or longer.
Cons: Uncomfortable treatment that requires numbing cream.
Redness will occur afterwards (but nothing make-up won't cover) Scarring may occur, but is rare. Takes 3-6 months to see results
Pain factor: 7-8/10 (pretty uncomfortable as the skin's heated during treatment)