Botox treatments as easy as going to the mall

Strolling the gleaming aisles of International Plaza, past Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co., some shoppers may feel the need for a little lift. Or they may peer into the fitting room mirrors at Kate Spade and spot the reflection of defiant wrinkles around their eyes.

Not acceptable. How about Botox?

But where? And who has time for an appointment at a plastic surgeon's office.

Never fear, dear sagging shopper. The mall that devotees call "International" or just "I.P." will soon have a solution - a walk-in injection oasis, a Botox boutique.

Tucked in a prominent spot off the mall's entrance from Bay Street, the "Venus Mini Med Spa" will open in a couple weeks, offering $200 Botox treatments, injectable fillers and other rejuvenating subcutaneous squirts.

"We'd like to do for Botox what LensCrafters did for glasses," said Venus owner Bill Clarke, namely, move Botox from the doctor's office to the mall, between Talbots and Cole Haan, and make facial injections as convenient as ordering something sticky sweet from Cinnabon.

No appointments necessary. Free consultations. Licensed technicians. The paperwork often takes longer than the treatments, Clarke said. Botox can take just 10 minutes, fillers 20 minutes, only because they can require numbing pain-killers first.

Trendy injections

Far from a pet project, Clarke hit onto a key trend in plastic surgery. Sales of the most expensive plastic surgery procedures are down dramatically amid the recession.

Liposuction down 19 percent; tummy tucks down 18 percent; breast augmentation down 12 percent, according to data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The more expensive the treatment, the more clients hold off writing the check.

That's spawned a booming industry in what plastic surgeons call "tide you over" procedures, anything to help clients bridge the gap between today's wrinkles and next year's in-patient surgery.

Botox injections are up 8 percent, fillers are up 6 percent and laser treatment of leg veins are up 6 percent.

All sorts of spas and hair salons are expanding into the med-spa industry, offering chemical peels, injections, laser hair removal, vein zapping, anything short of actual incisions with a scalpel.

Sit down, get shot

Tampa already has more than a dozen mini med spas in strip malls, some offering Botox treatments. Venus will be the first injection boutique under the roof of glitzy International Plaza.

For their part, International Plaza officials are "thrilled," said spokeswoman Nina Mahoney. The style will be comfortable and discrete, she said, and won't put clients on display for other shoppers to gawk at while walking by.

Venus owners have already opened one mini med spa location at Sarasota's Westfield Southgate mall, tucked between a Chico's and, yes, a LensCrafters. Soon after opening, that location started attracting eight to 18 walk-in clients a day, Clarke said.

Compared with the national average of $391 per Botox treatment, Venus plans to charge $200 per "zone," such as the eyes or lips, plus a $75 opening discount.

"We can have them in the door and back out again in 30 minutes," Clarke said. "We saw all that money plastic surgeons spend on advertising trying to get clients to call and get belly to belly and talk about what products do," Clarke said.

Instead, Clarke wants to be where shoppers are already walking and spending money - the mall. Fifty percent of his customers have never had a plastic surgery treatment of any kind, he says.

By the holidays, Venus owners hope to open mall locations in Naples and several other Florida cities.