(MONEY Magazine) – If you can take out a loan to pay for a new Harley, why not do the same to get whiter teeth, thinner thighs and fewer wrinkles? After all, notes Anne M. Tynion, a former vice president at Harley-Davidson and the current president and CEO of Chicago lender Unicorn Financial Services, "An elective medical procedure is no different from any other luxury product."

Since last December, Tynion's company has offered consumers special loans for medical procedures not covered by traditional insurance, such as liposuction, refractive eye surgery and facelifts. Before you ride your motorcycle down to your cosmetic surgeon, however, make sure you've ruled out better payment options.

At first glance, Unicorn financing is as tempting as a flat stomach with no sit-ups. Already some 200 doctors and dentists across the country, eager to help their patients pay for costly elective procedures, offer loans from Unicorn. Patients simply fill out a short application in their physician's office, and Unicorn grants authorization within minutes after a credit check. You can borrow up to $15,000 at an average interest rate of 9.9%. That's not bad, considering that unsecured personal loans run from 12% to 18%. But you have only a short 24 months to pay off your loan.

What's more, you can probably find an even less expensive borrowing alternative. For instance, the rate on a home-equity loan averages 8.5%, and the interest is tax deductible. If you have investments, consider a brokerage equity line at around 8%, says Michael Chasnoff, a financial planner with Advanced Capital Strategies in Cincinnati. Or do the plastic shuffle by rolling the debt onto new credit cards with low introductory rates of 4% or 5% until you pay your surgery off.

Then too, don't overlook the possibility that your plastic surgeon or dentist will let you stretch out your payments over a year or more--at no interest. Best of all, there's always the old-fashioned way to finance a nonnecessity: saving for it. "By the time you save the money, what seemed important at the time may not mean as much," says Chasnoff. "In six months or a year, you might decide your profile gives you character."

--Karen Cheney