Instant Plastic Surgery

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In the real world, plastic surgery is a long and painful process, with clearly-defined limits on what can be accomplished. Thankfully, in a magical, or sufficiently futuristic setting, things are a lot more simplified; all you need is the right spell, artefact, or professional, and minutes later you can be taller, prettier, or a fully-fledged member of the opposite sex. Heck, why not all three?

A popular trope in video-games and high fantasy, where often the only limit to these fantastical transformations is the inability to swap races, and sometimes not even then.

When used to change a character's sex, this is a form of Easy Sex Change. Not to be confused with Magic Plastic Surgery, which is when real plastic surgery techniques are portrayed as this.

Examples of Instant Plastic Surgery include:

Fan Works

• A great number of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time fan works are based on Zelda's disguise being this, rather than simply an illusion spell of some kind.

Film

• The Happily Ever After potion in Shrek 2 is able to transform Shrek and Fiona into humans, and Donkey into a stallion. Only lasts for a day, unless sealed with true love's kiss by the stroke of midnight. At the end of the movie, Shrek tells Fiona that he would stay human forever if it would make her happy. Fiona thinks about it, touched that Shrek would sacrifice his identity for her, but says that she married an ogre, and intends to keep it that way.
  • What happens to Dragon under the effect of this potion anyway?

Literature

• In The Belles, Belles are supposed to have this power. They can shapeshift different looks on any paying customer. The Big Bad Sophia, spare to the New Orleans throne, finds this power intriguing and wants to control it all. Why? So she can turn them into her personal Belles factory and use them to disfigure or murder anyone in her way.
• Aza in Gail Carson Levine's Fairest gets it in her head to try and find these in the Ayorthian libraries. She hates how she's tall with pale skin, red lips and black hair; it makes her look ghastly. The first attempt, a singing spell, doesn't go well; it nearly turns her to stone. While her body revives, her big toe remains stone as a reminder of the near-miss. She figures out that the new Queen Ivi hides these in the flute she never plays, finding a potion for beauty, and drinks a few drops. It makes her beautiful by Ayorthian standards, but the price is that when she and Ivi die, a spider named Skulni will trap them in a mirror while he travels the world for as long as he likes. He also reveals that he manipulated Ivi into attempting to murder Aza, as well as either get her killed in a civil war or die by suicide so that he can go out and explore the world. Turns out he's destroyed entire countries to have his bit of fun! Even though Aza is mad at Ivi for framing her for treason and blackmailing her, she sings that no one deserves that fate and destroys the mirror while trapped inside of it. The potion reverts them to their normal looks, and Aza admits that beauty is not everything.
• Justified in Scott Westerfeld's original Uglies trilogy. While the surgeries themselves are not necessarily easy to get-- they do require anesthetic and have to make adjustments-- they are more convenient than they would be in real life. Books two and three start with Tally suffering no physical complications from being turned Pretty and later Special. Emotional complications, however, are another matter: when Tally undoes the brainwashing from the lesions by sheer Magic Feather, she's shocked and broken by the end of the series. We also find out that surgeries have more complications when performed on people with brain damage, because there's a high risk of the tissues being rejected. While Zane agrees to receive the Specials surgery if he betrays the New Smoke haven when a brainwashed Tally and Shay persuade him, turns out he lied. He knew it would be futile to fix him. To make it worse, his brain dies on the operating table when Diego surgeons attempt to repair his tissue.

Live-Action TV

• The Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" explains there is a process called The Transformation. It will make anyone beautiful from a limited set of body types and looks, and extend their lifespan. Marilyn, the protagonist who is "pretty" but not beautiful, shocks her family and the doctor wanting to operate her by saying that she doesn't want to look beautiful. She says that she wants to stay as herself, in mind and body. Sadly, the doctor and nurses take the choice away from her, turning her into a vapid Barbie.

Tabletop Games

• In Vampire: The Masquerade, this is but one of the many, many miraculous wonders the Tzimisce are capable of through their unique power of Vicissitude. Laughably, raising your Appearance score using the power is Difficulty 10 (in OWOD, Difficulty is what you have to roll to succeed; the game uses a ten-sided die, so...), and if you suffer Critical Failure you get uglier.
  • There are some things that even Vicissitude can't do—trying to change a Nosferatu's appearance is impossible.
    • Changes that make them prettier, anyway. Changes that make them uglier, or cosmetically status quo (don't move their appearance trait at all) stick, while improvements 'heal' painfully in minutes. Makes sense considering Clan weaknesses are a malevolent curse rather than a genetic quirk to be fixed.

Video Games

• Once you craft a make-up table and mirror in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you are free to alter your appearance in it at any time.
• City of Heroes: Thanks to the good people at Icon (or the somewhat less morally inclined folk employed by the Facemaker), heroes and villains can now easily change the size and shape of their bodies, even switch genders. Of course, in a world where there is a black market for magical artifacts and super science is used daily, this is pretty well Justified. During the game's original run this was only available to those players who had purchased the Super Science Super Booster, but with the game's resurrection in 2019 has become available to all.
• This is the in-universe excuse for Shepard's appearance if you change it between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2; s/he died in the interim and had to be completely rebuilt.
• Star Wars The Old Republic has "Appearance Designer Kiosk's" that can provide this service, provided you have enough Cartel Coins.
• World of Warcraft barbers can change your gender, hair, facial features, and skin colour.
• Galathil from Skyrim offers this service for an affordable price down in The Ragged Flagon.
• In the world of Elden Ring, one need only approach the Clouded Mirror Stand to change your age, gender, or any other cosmetic features of your character.
• You can build a "Dressing Table" (which is a mirror attached to a small storage desk) after the first chunk of Dragon Quest Builders 2. It actually gives significantly more options than initial character customization offered, and allows setting any armor or weapon you've obtained as your appearance instead what you actually have equipped. You can also find one just after the tutorial in the Isle of Awakening before leaving for Furrowfield and play with it almost immediately. Also an Easter Egg lets you duplicate the effects of the Sword of Ruin glitch from Dragon Quest II by equipping the cursed sword and changing its appearance to the Falcon Blade to once again get the best of both weapons..

Western Animation

• One episode of Family Guy had Peter receive plastic surgery and becoming hot as a result. He suffers no side effects from this, nor from the accident that restores him to normal. Another episode had Lois gain weight from stress eating; she was returned to normal after doctors cut away her fat to save her from a heart attack.
• In The Owl House, one can use illusion bracelets to obtain this effect. Remove the bracelet and the illusion vanishes. It's revealed that the Blight parents make Edric and Emira wear them, and Darius designs a potion for Eda to disguise herself as Raine for his plan to stop the Day of Unity.
• One gag in What's New, Scooby-Doo? showed the gang visiting an amusement park of innovations. Daphne jokingly pushes Velma into a high-tech makeover machine. Velma steps out in five-minutes with makeup, her turtleneck turned into a tank, and stylish platforms. The machine does nothing to Daphne, who says there's no improving on perfection.