The first time she thought of getting breast implants, Juana Ramos Mejia was at her pediatrician's office. "I was twelve or thirteen then, absolutely flat, and I asked him whether my bust would grow," recalls Ramos Mejia, a 32-year-old secretary in Buenos Aires, Argentina. "He said, 'Kid—forget it.' From that moment on, I knew I would do it."

Ramos Mejia's precocious interest in cosmetic surgery is hardly unusual here in Buenos Aires. Maria Marta Talice Laboratto, 26, eschewed a quinceanera megaparty in order to straighten her nose 10 years ago. The "hook I had for a nose," she says, besides attracting taunts, might have made it difficult for her to progress professionally in Argentina's still male-dominated white-collar world. "Almost every girl I know wants to have something done," she says, "and if they haven't done it it's because of fear or a lack of means."

Machismo plays a large part in South Americans' beauty obsession. There's a strong pressure for women to adhere to a European look, and if they don't fit the mold, they suffer harsher judgement, personally and professionally, than in many other cultures.

You could also say that South American societies suffer from an inferiority complex. The Argentines, for example, have always felt one step away from real modernity and wealth. In his book The Masks of Argentina, journalist Luis Majul describes cosmetic surgery as a quick, personal route to the so-called First World.

Like Brazil and Venezuela, Argentina has a booming cosmetic surgery industry. Although no official statistics are compiled, Argentina is among the top-ranked countries in per capita rates of cosmetic surgery, says Guillermo Flaherty, president of the Argentine plastic surgeons' association.

Flaherty says local surgeons have seen a diversification of their patient portfolios since the 1990s. As Argentina put the era of military dictatorships behind it and fully embraced a market economy, society became less buttoned up. Plastic surgery grew less taboo and more of a commodity. Men and younger women began filling the waiting rooms.

In upscale areas of Buenos Aires, it's difficult to walk two blocks without observing the telltale pout of a collagen procedure. Julie Scofield, a 28-year-old American who lived here recently, remembers that her gym's locker room was an exhibition hall of breast implants. "It was like they all had gone out and bought the same model."