Linda Strachan had been working as a mental health nurse for 10 years when she got her first taste of Botox. It was 2008 and one of her friends admitted that the muscle paralysing injections - at the time still a comparatively new cosmetic treatment in the UK - were the reason she had no lines or wrinkles. "I was always of the opinion that people who do that would be crazy - but she didn't look like a crazy person, so I thought 'I'm going to give that a try'," said Ms Strachan, now 48.
She liked the effect, and in 2009 decided to launch her own business - Aspire Aesthetics - as a sideline to her main job in the NHS. READ MORE: How did we get here? The rise of cosmetic surgery - and where it's headed 'The first time I had it done, I was blown away': The new must-have facial for brides I tried Scotland's newest skin-tightening procedure - so what's it like? Ms Strachan had graduated with a first-class degree in nursing from Aberdeen University in 1998 and along with her husband, also a nurse at the time, had settled in Aberdeenshire where she spent the first decade of her career working for NHS Grampian. By 2009, however, she was frustrated.
Linda Strachan, an award-winning cosmetic nurse and owner of Aspire Aesthetics in Inverurie, is among a growing number of nurses who have left the NHS for a career in aesthetic medicine (Image: MICHAEL TRAILL) She said: "Both my husband and I were working in the NHS, we had a young family, and we were struggling financially. "I felt stifled.