Ann Wason Moore visits the Layt Clinic on the Gold Coast

There’s so much pressure to look perfect these days, but you won’t find this cosmetic surgery clinic goading you into surgery you don’t need. Here’s what it’s like inside one of the city’s most successful clinics.

Craig and Tina Layt at the Layt Clinic. Picture Jason O'Brien

I CAN’T help but take a deep breath as I swing open the heavy glass door to the Layt Clinic.

It’s not that I’m nervous, I just feel like I need to suck my tummy in. And maybe poke my chest out.

There’s something about entering a cosmetic surgery clinic that has that effect on me. It’s like the automatic reaction to brake when I see a police car on the side of the road. I feel under review.

Which is ironic, given that the only person judging anyone in this Southport surgery is me.

I eye the patients in the waiting room, wondering why they’re there. Botox? Boob job? Face lift?

Craig and Tina Layt. Picture Jason O'Brien

Yet everyone in the office appears reassuringly normal.

And when I meet specialist plastic, cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon Craig Layt and his wife Tina, not only the practice manager but a mathematician, radiographer and classically trained singer, I understand why.

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They may run one of the Gold Coast’s most successful cosmetic surgery clinics but you wouldn’t guess it from their faces — which are full of expression, not filler.

“We don’t employ anyone who has that plastic look,” says Craig.

“That’s not what we’re trying to achieve here. We want our clients to look and feel their best, yes, but we also still want them to look like themselves.”

Craig and Tina Layt outside their clinic. Picture Jason O'Brien

I’m sure he means everything he says. Certainly his long list of clients attests to that, but to be honest it’s a little hard to make eye contact … given that there are racks of, well, racks, lined up behind him.

A whole wall of crystal-clear implants gleams in the afternoon light, inspiring visions of boosted busts in my head.

Apparently I’m not the first to be distracted by these future DD-cups.

“When one of our daughters was starting pre-prep, they had this play area with all these little rubber balls in it,” laughs Tina.

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“My friend was there and said these other mothers were looking at my daughter really strangely — she had these two balls down her top, pretending they’re boobs.

“My friend just turned to the other mothers and said, ‘don’t worry, her father’s a plastic surgeon’ and just left it at that. They understood.”

Craig and Tina Layt. Picture Jason O'Brien

Parents of two daughters and one son, Craig and Tina say their industry has made them hyper-aware of the pressure for physical perfection placed on young people.

Craig says his children are perhaps luckier than most, understanding from a young age that cosmetic procedures are less about glamour and more about medicine.

“The kids pop in here all the time. We expect them to do things for the practice. They do some power point presentations for us, they pack bags for the operating procedures … at its heart, this is a family practice,” says Craig.

“For them, this is all normal. And really, the desire to be attractive is itself normal. It is an innate desire in us all. But we don’t believe in promoting an unreal look.

“Our children are lucky in that they have in their mother such a smart and strong role model who looks natural, she’s never overdone and our staff are the same. We practise what we preach.”

Craig and Tina say body dysmorphia — an obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance — is a real danger for young people, but the promotion of plastic surgery is not to blame.

Instead, they say it is the prevalence of social media that is harming self-esteem and, in the worst cases, bodies.

Craig says his staff attended a recent Breast Masters Symposium in Sydney, which made headlines when speaker Professor Emerita Nichola Rumsey, a leading international expert on appearance psychology, linked plastic surgery to body image anxiety.

“The fact is that there is no data to support that the promotion of plastic surgery is linked to body dysmorphia,” he says.

“But there is data that shows that from the ages of eight and nine, the effects of social media are already kicking in, big time. These kids are feeling the pressure, even when they are that young, to look a certain way. It’s pressure from social media, from their peers, from magazines. That’s what worries us.

“Every photo has a filter on it these days. None of it is real but people think that it is and then that’s how they want to look. It’s dangerous.”

Craig says it is for this reason that he avoid trends in cosmetic surgery.

While the clinic is set to be involved in a world-first study on cellulite treatment, details of which cannot yet be released, he says he operates according to what works, not what is on trend.

“Just because something is all over social media doesn’t mean we should do it,” he says.

“We regularly counsel our patients not to go ahead with a procedure. There are a significant number of patients that we turn away because we don’t think it’s the right thing to do, whether it’s because they’re physically or mentally not ready for it or because the procedure is just not right for them.

“The Brazilian butt lift is a perfect example of a trend we chose to avoid. It’s huge in the US but it also has the highest mortality rate of any plastic surgery procedure.

“If I was concerned about trends, I would have jumped on this bandwagon. But when I see the data, it’s not worth it.

“Besides, there still aren’t too many Australian women requesting a bigger bum.”

However Craig says there are plenty of patients whose physical concerns are founded.

He says labiaplasty, plastic surgery that alters the folds of skin surrounding the vulva, is one of the most popular procedures.

“We do lots and lots of labiaplasties, we get patients of all ages,” says Craig.

“It could be an issue of asymmetry, they may find it uncomfortable, they may be into horse riding or dancing, they could find it embarrassing, there could be issues with intercourse … it’s hard to understand if you don’t have the problem.

“But what we try to do here is to normalise these things.

“If a patient came in and everyone was whispering about labiaplasty and I was coy talking to them about it, then it would be a problem.

“But that’s not the case. It’s just normal. Even in society, it’s become normal — these procedures have occurred for a long time, people just didn’t talk about it. Now these surgeries are common and accepted. I believe that normalising anything that’s going to make people’s lives better is good.

“Where it’s a problem is when people start to promote things that are potentially harmful.

“If someone comes in here thinking she should get a labiaplasty because it will improve her sex life, I would set her straight. That’s where being a professional comes into it.

“I also take care to respect their privacy. Often I see a patient out in public, but I never say hello unless they say it first. No matter how much we normalise cosmetic and plastic surgery, it’s still no one’s business but the patient’s.

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“I just hope people don’t judge me a snob.”

Indeed, while Craig and Tina withhold judgment from all their patients, it seems both are more critical when it comes to themselves.

Tina, who met Craig while both were at university in Brisbane, has a degree in mathematics and is an ultrasonographer and radiographer. She was a lecturer at QUT and was head of paediatric ultrasonography at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital when the pair were living in Victoria while Craig finished his own medical training.

She now manages not just the Layt Clinic but a busy household with three teenage children.

“I do sometimes wonder about all that studying I did, now I don’t really use it,” she says.

“It’s difficult as a woman and a mother, to juggle both work and home. I had to put something down, eventually. I do hope that somehow there is an easier balance for my daughters.

“But I also like to think that our children have seen their parents really work hard together and succeed together. We are a team.”

Tina’s moment of self-doubt is nothing if not relatable.

And yet, with the help of her husband, just as they both help their clients to do, she continues to put her best face forward.

I might still be judging, but this time it’s all good. On balance, this couple excel at keeping it real.