UPDATED: 7:49 am EDT May 18, 2011ORLANDO, Fla. -- It used to be the best gift you could give a graduate was cold, hard cash. Not so anymore. Now a brand new nose or "Botoxed" smile are on the wish list of many teenage girls. But how young is too young to go under the knife or needle? Oh, the things women do to be beautiful. But on a recent spring day, the "woman" in the chair at Fresh MedSpa in Orlando was a 14-year-old girl. Lexy Hattori is in eighth grade, but she's one of the growing number of teens looking to have a little something done. ?I realized my armpits were getting very irritated a lot,? said Lexys. As a dancer, Lexys trains more than 20 hours a week, and that means she has to shave much more often than other teen girls her age, and it?s becoming painful, she said. So, her mom gave her the gift of laser hair removal. ?It was actually my idea,? said Sarah Hattori. Laser hair removal tops the list with teens, with more than 66,000 procedures done in 2010. Next on the list are nose jobs and skin resurfacing. But perhaps the most disturbing trend, said Amy Brock, owner of the Fresh MedSpa, are Botox injections, which are up 13 percent from last year for teens. Teenage girls have always been into beauty, but it?s gone from lip gloss to lip injections. And many teens and their moms say it's all fueled by the celebrity images they see every day. Just last fall, socialite and reality TV star Kim Kardashian received Botox injections. Brock said she's seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in teens coming to her for Botox or Juvaderm, and she has no problem saying no. ?It just would be unnecessary or almost silly,? said Brock. ?Girls who want to have an Angelina Jolie mouth or they want to have the cheekbones of a Kardashian. And I'll explain to them, 'Listen, you're not going to look like who you are,'? Brock continued. But that's not easy to hear when you're a young girl who's not happy with whom she is. Lindsy Garlock, 28, remembers that feeling all too well. She asked for and got new breasts when she graduated from high school. ?I think they understood. My mom definitely sympathized,? said Garlock. And now, a decade later, Garlock said she?s happy with her choice but wants to remind young girls that beauty is not skin deep. ?That's something you have to find inside yourself. If you're not happy with the person you are, no amount of plastic surgery is gonna change that for you,? said Garlock. That's a point young Lexy Hattori, who is now asking to have her teeth whitened, seems to be learning. ?I don't really think teens should get that much done,? she said. Brock also warns that beginning injections of Botox or Juvaderm too early can lead to a buildup of scar tissue. It can also become a very costly procedure as teens will have to have it retouched often.
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