Putting your mouth where your money is
(and other things people will do to improve their looks!)

When you think plastic surgery, it's hard not to think Hollywood and the United States of America. Think again. While the number of people in the States who would consider plastic surgery (if money was no issue) was quite high, it was eclipsed by the Brazilians. More than four in ten Brazilians would have plastic or cosmetic surgery if their wallets allowed, rising to nearly 60% among Brazilian women.

An overall 19% of respondents across the globe would consider this more radical beauty intervention - 12% of men and a quarter of all women said they would have cosmetic or plastic surgery if they could. In nearly every market, the number of women who would yield to the knife or needle was more than double the number of men. The only exception to this was India where very few people of either gender would make a date with their surgeon.

In other would-if-they-could findings, 42% of all Koreans would sign up for skin whitening products (61% of Korean women) and only 7% of Spaniards think these products would improve their looks. In an inverse finding, 41% of our Spanish respondents would use a tanning salon (half of all women) but only 14% of Koreans would.

South Africans and Indians were most likely to try a personal shopping service to improve clothes or style at 59% and 57% respectively. Intriguingly, men were just as likely in both nations (if not more likely) to think this service would make a difference, something that India's Rahul Varma attributes to survival of the fittest.

"There are fewer jobs here than the number of people chasing them. There is a need to have an extra edge over others and this could give people that advantage."

The survey also found that, even if money were no object, there are still three in ten people comfortable enough with their beauty (within or without, or both) to do nothing at all... no extra products, no spa treatments, no tanning, no skin whitening or surgery. And that's a beautiful thought.

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> A mixed beauty bag

> Beauty is as beauty does

> Don't go changing

> It's a kind of magic