The economy may be sagging, but that doesn't mean your skin has to.

Yes, despite a spurt of bad press about adverse reactions and all the late-night humor, demand for Botox, the injectable drug used to perk up aging faces, is rising. And the doctors who offer it may have the downturn to thank.

A recent survey of dermatologic surgeons found growing demand for Botox, laser procedures and fillers this year, even as a survey of plastic surgeons found that demand for their pricier procedures dropped dramatically. Botox sales jumped 13% last quarter to $315.5 million, according to producer Allergan (nyse: AGN - news - people ).

"We are seeing some people downsizing, doing a Botox kind of procedure instead of a face lift," said Darrell Rigel, president of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, which commissioned the study.

Jeffrey Dover, the society's vice president, said the results jived with an informal study of physicians he and a colleague presented to analysts from Deutsche Bank (nyse: DB - news - people ) this spring. Dover said respondents reported a 5% to 35% drop in big-ticket procedures, while less-expensive treatments rose.

And an American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery survey this spring reported that more than half of plastic surgery practices had been adversely affected by the ailing economy, suggesting substitution is at work. Americans spent just over $13 billion on cosmetic procedures in 2007; $8.3 billion was for surgical procedures and $4.7 billion for nonsurgical procedures.

Rigel, who practices in Manhattan, sees a second economic reason for the Botox bonanza: out-of-work bankers. "I'm also seeing a new set of people, [those] who have been laid off and are trying to get back into the job market and want to look great," he says, adding many of these new clients came from jobs at troubled investment houses like Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ). "It used to be less than 1% of my practice. Now it's 15 or 20."

For job seekers who can't afford the downtime of surgery, procedures like Botox have the advantage of speed as well as price. Because less expensive procedures like Botox are recent entrants to the catalog of cosmetics treatments, previous recessions lacked such a trade-off, but the phenomenon fits a theory discussed in another branch of cosmetics.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, lipstick manufacturers noticed an increase in sales and hypothesized that women, concerned about a downturn, were turning away from shoes and dresses, instead substituting tubes of lipstick.

But while economic forces change cosmetic decisions for some consumers, others are staying put. "Certain people have to look good and want to look good," Rigel said. "They have to go without something else."