(FORTUNE Magazine) – Allegations concerning faulty breast implants may have sent Dow Corning into bankruptcy, facing $2 billion in claims, but the cosmetic surgery business is still looking as good as ever-particularly as more men try to erase the evidence of their years.

Last year the baggy-eyed and proboscis-challenged among us anted up for more than two million procedures, generating $2.6 billion in revenues, up from $1.9 billion in 1992. And vanity, thy name is Tom, Dick, or Harry: men now account for about one in four nips, tucks, or nose jobs.

Driving the uptick: new techniques, improved safety, and youth-obsessed boomers, who promise to lift surgeons' incomes for years.

More than 40,000 breast enlargements were performed in 1994, an increase of 57% over 1993 and the highest total since 1990, before the silicone debacle. Saline implants, which have replaced those of silicone, are perceived as safer. Scarring is reduced thanks to endoscopic surgery, in which implants are inserted through small incisions. Average cost: $2,697, almost none covered by insurance.

The most popular job--and one of the cheapest, at $191 on average--is removal of "spider veins" from legs. In the past surgeons had to cut them out, leaving scars. Now a simple injection of a so-called sclerosing agent does the trick.

Men are getting made over in greater numbers; they accounted for 24% of procedures in 1993, vs. 17% in 1988. For them, hair transplants (average cost: $2,151) are still tops. The latest laser surgery allows men to get a matrix of tiny hair ports on their scalps (is somebody attaching a printer to their skulls?), rather than the much-maligned, easy-to-spot "plugs" of the past. Men are also getting their share of other procedures, including 30% of nose jobs (average cost: $2,850) and 17% of face-lifts (average cost: $4,120).

Market forces are propelling this men's movement, as middle-aged divorces try to compete in the dating market and middle- and upper-level managers try to compete in the job market. Take Don Gray, founder of Don Gray Trucking in Kingsport, Tennessee, who gave himself a face-lift as a 50th-birthday gift. Says he: "I don't feel 50, and I don't want to look it. Now I feel good about myself and can do a better job, make the right decisions."

Given the demand, other specialists are trying to cut in on cosmetic surgeons' turf. Oral surgeons are doing face-lifts, and otolaryngologists are going for the throat, not to mention the nose.

Says Guillermo Castillo, president-elect of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery: "The market has increased exponentially. A lot of subspecialists are trying to muscle in."

--Justin Martin