Life of 1000 cuts in quest for eternal youth

By FIONA HAWTIN

The face is smooth and taut, the brow unlined, the eyes free of those age-betraying laugh lines.

Pamela Noon is 56 and looks ... hmmm, maybe 40-something.

And it's all done with scalpels.

Ms Noon acknowledges she is the show and tell of cosmetic surgery.

The glamorous Australian has had 26 cosmetic operations and 88 maintenance procedures over 20 years to make her look better, younger, more attractive.

"I think it is fairly addictive, because if you do something that turns your life around a little bit, particularly the way you look, you automatically feel better about yourself and are on to yourself every time you see something you should attend to," she said.

Next up is a mini-stomach tuck - "I'm definitely a work in progress."

The temptation to look for giveaway signs is overwhelming.

Up close, the trim liposuctioned figure in all-white appears to be the handiwork of good practitioners.

She does not have the always surprised look of Joan Rivers or the collapsed nose of Michael Jackson.

But the hands and upper arms are the giveaway. Just as pictures of a swimsuit-clad Joan Collins doing the rounds in women's magazines attest to the arm theory, so do Ms Noon's mid-fifties hands belie her rested 40-something face.

Because Ms Noon is in the appearance business, a lot of the work has been done for free.

Real patients do not like being filmed mid-way through an operation, so that is her fat being sucked from her thighs, hips and buttocks on the video she uses at seminars she runs in her role as "patient adviser" for a cosmetic surgery group.

"In exchange for the payment I bared my soul inside and out. I'm like the girl who works in a shoe shop who's got more shoes than anyone.

"I work in a cosmetic surgery shop."

All up, the cost of her transformation comes to A$137,300 ($157,130) although this figure uses prices from the year each change was done.

At current prices, she estimates the figure would be closer to A$200,000.

"I've almost spent more on my hair in that period than on my cosmetic surgery. I have a colour every two weeks. I have my hair done twice a week."

She was not an ugly duckling who dreamed of being beautiful.

Rather, she was not too bad looking, but when she got to a certain age she started to see the signs of ageing and wanted to reverse it.

It started almost 20 years ago with her eyes. As a presenter on Australian morning television, she had just interviewed a cosmetic surgeon. He told her off-air she would look better if she had her eyes done.

So she did.

"Afterwards, I realised people ought to think about it a little more," she said.

"I had no idea where the incisions were going to be made, if there were stitches, when they were coming out, how much time I should have off work, what I should do to prepare myself. Those things weren't available to me.

"It made me realise there was room here for somebody to explain to people what they would go through."

Which is what she now does.

Her advice to those contemplating anything cosmetic is to understand the procedure, get qualified people to perform it and ask questions.

"If it's surgery, it is an operation. Don't let anybody fool you that it's a beauty treatment. It should be done in hospital."

Pain is not an issue. She does not feel it in matters of vanity.

"The only one I found was reasonably painful was a brow lift and that was because of headaches. But that was very short term."

The closed eyelid was not. It lasted four weeks when a trickle of Botox went into the lid after a brow elevation. One eyelid closed and stayed shut.

But the elevated effect she got when the needle of Botox went into the eyebrow was so sensational that she went ahead with a second one. The same thing happened.

She will not be going back for a third time.