Sonya Hartley is willing to cut back on weekly happy hours with her girlfriends.

She'll even forgo some shopping at Nordstrom.

But the recession will not force the 45-year-old American Airlines flight attendant to stop paying $500 every six months for Botox injections.

"It takes a 45-year-old woman and brings you down to 38," said Hartley, who flies out of BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport and Reagan National Airport. "It just makes you look fresh."

At a time when consumers are struggling to pay the rent on time and businesses are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, vanity appears to be...