It is the weekend that fantasy plastic surgery comes to town with a flourish that is not so much Beverly Hills as Ideal Homes.

As the first ever Body Beautiful exhibition - the ultimate age-defying and beautifying event, according to the posters - opened its doors yesterday, a hundred doctors put the final touches to their stalls, straightened piles of free gift inducements and sharpened their persuasion techniques ready for business.

'If money was no object, is there any part of yourself you would change?' the representative from Cosmetic Surgery Advisory Services called out from his stall as The Observer passed by.

Claiming in their leaflet to offer impartial advice, he expressed extreme surprise when told I was quite content with my flaws. 'You would not change anything?' he gasped. 'You're quite sure?'

Rarely before have so many carefully beautiful women with desperation in their eyes been gathered together in central London.

They huddled together in corners, puffing maniacally on cigarettes and picking at the sweet buns sold in the Cosmetic Cafe, anxiously discussing expensive anti-ageing procedures and invasive fat removal operations. 'I know it's ridiculous to smoke when I'm about to fork out hundreds of pounds to make my skin look younger, but this makes me so anxious,' said Laura Constain, a 34-year-old fashion designer from west London. 'I'm prepared to pay whatever it takes.'

Need a line filled? A lip outlined? A thigh thinned? Hayley Chancellor was so impressed by the number of choices available she telephoned her friends from the middle of the exhibition and urged them to come along.

'It's brilliant here and I'm definitely going to have something done,' the 24-year-old said. 'I don't know what yet: it's almost like there's too much choice.

'It's just like I can suddenly see how I can change everything about myself that I don't like and then do some pampering stuff, like permanent eyeliner and lipliner, as my reward,' she said. 'I've just paid off my overdraft, so I've got the money.'

Age is no barrier for the women at the show. Kaylea Foulger is just 18. 'I would like to have Botox in my forehead and a filler injected between my eyes. If I could afford it, I would have a permanent eyeliner and lipliner done too,' she said.

'I'm just being lazy really with the permanent make-up: it's a vanity thing that will save time in the mornings,' she added. 'I don't think I'm too young at all to be thinking about cosmetic surgery. You see it talked about everywhere and now when I look at girls in the street and think I want to look like them I know that, if I save enough money, I really can.'

Alone among the bustling stalls, where doctors and permanently startled-looking saleswomen leapt out at passers-by, was a lonely, unmanned desk representing the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). Next door, the Danné Montague-King representative, eager to talk about his practice's breakthrough in scar revision and treating hyper-pigmentation, looked blank when asked if his practice was a BAAPS member. 'I haven't heard of that group,' he admitted. 'But I think we are members of International Federation of Aromatherapy and the British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmology.'

In the Demo Zone upstairs, a group of young and naturally lovely women stood transfixed around a bed on which a girl was having eyeliner tattooed on to her upper and lower eyelids by a nurse.

As the most tender part of her eyelid was pulled back and the ink pumped into its edge, the girl murmured; 'You can do whatever you want. I trust you.'

Not everyone at the fair was quite as trusting, including some of the exhibitors themselves.

Naomi Cambridge began working for Collagenics, a company specialising in non-surgical cosmetic procedures, three weeks ago.

'There are so many cowboys in this business it's untrue,' she whispered. 'I've been really shocked. We have people ringing us asking for work all the time who pretend to be doctors and I wouldn't like to bet on how many people here today are really respectable.

'This business, and this event, is all a bit of a meat market,' she added. 'I'm now committed to working in it but I have to say I am not liking everything I see.'