use Botox at age 30.

Reality TV fixture Kim Kardashian may have raised a few (unfrozen) eyebrows with her recent admission that she’s already used Botox at age 30.

But for some young women, the question seems to be, “What took you so long?”

“I wanted to be cute, to look cute, but I had these ugly lines in between my eyebrows and on my forehead,” says Stephanie Torres, 19, of New York. “So I asked if I could get Botox. My mom paid for it. It was like a little birthday present.”

Torres, who went under the needle at age 18, is one of many teens and early 20somethings who are turning to Botox in an effort to not only smooth existing furrows, but fend off the aging process itself.

“We do a lot of Botox, and there’s definitely a propensity for younger people doing it,” says Dr. Glenn Vallecillos, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. “I’d say 30 percent of my clients are 20 to 25 years old and probably 5 to 8 percent are under age 20. The trend, at least at our offices, is younger people.”

Statistics also suggest Botox use is trickling down even younger.

   1. Skin and beauty
         1. Image: Lindsay Lohan

AP; msnbc.com illustration

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In 2009, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reported 12,110 Botox or Dysport (another wrinkle-relaxing shot) procedures performed on patients 18 and under (in 2008, the number was 8,194) while the American Society of Plastic Surgeons found 11,889 cosmetic Botox/Dysport procedures were performed on patients age 13 to 19 (an increase of 2 percent from 2008).