Clients of Morphosis Rejuvenation Studio in San Jose, Calif., can make a beauty pit stop to zap away acne, smooth pesky wrinkles and plump skinny lips -- all between shopping and grabbing a latte.

"We like to call them lunchtime treatments," says Linda Levenson, a nurse practitioner and founder of Morphosis. "There's virtually no down time. You can get something done, put on your makeup, and go back to work. It's like running another errand."

Medical spas such as Morphosis are a fast-emerging category in the spa industry and in aesthetic medicine, proliferating in shopping centers and strip malls across the country.

For those looking for quick, relatively affordable results without going under the knife or having to take time off, these spas, also called "medspas" or "medi-spas," have taken non-invasive cosmetic procedures into an elegant, day spa setting.

With many offering luxury ambience, convenient retail locations with walk-in services and special discount packages, more and more people are tempted to choose a medspa over a traditional doctor's office. But despite the growing popularity of medspas, some physicians warn that there are potential safety hazards if facilities don't have the proper medical supervision.

"There's a huge demand" for medspas, says John Buckingham, founder of the Southern California-based national medspa chain Solana MedSpas and board member for the International Medical Spa Association, "mostly by baby boomer women in their 40s and 50s, whose kids are grown and who are now looking in the mirror saying 'Oh, my God, I don't want to look like my mother.'"

"They want to be pampered, they want these procedures done in a convenient place close to other stops they are making on the weekends, and they don't want to sit next to sick people in a sterile doctor's office," Buckingham says. "It's medicine -- in a spa-like, retail environment."

At Morphosis, for instance, prices generally range from $120 for a single 15-minute laser hair removal to $2,000 for two sessions using their new Titan Cutera machine, a device that claims to use radio frequencies to tighten the skin.

There are about 1,500 medical spas nationwide, a figure that has tripled since 2003 and continues to grow, says Hannelore Leavy, executive director of the International Medical Spa Association.

FDA approval of Botox for treating frown lines revolutionized the specialty fields of dermatology and plastic surgery in 2002, says Vic Narurkar, founder of the Bay Area Laser Institute and president of the American Society of Cosmetic Dermatology and Aesthetic Surgery.

The relatively simple procedure of injecting Botox meant it became the No. 1 non-surgical cosmetic procedure in the United States, with 3.2 million procedures performed on Americans in 2005, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

"It's an effective, immediate, tried-and-true treatment that really set the bar for minimally invasive, non-surgical procedures," Narurkar says.

There were also continuing improvements and refinement of non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as skin resurfacing that spurred more women to give them a try.

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