John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are not likely to undergo face transplant surgery if they decide to remake the film Face Off. They can just buy their lifelike silicone face masks on China's Internet.

Taobao.com, the country's biggest online shopping mall, has hundreds of shops selling artificial faces, with prices ranging from a few dozen yuan to more than 10,000 yuan ($1,573), reported the Chongqing Evening News Sunday.

A Shenzhen-based mask manufacturer told the Global Times that her most frequent clients are transvestites. "Many male buyers buy the mask so they can look more like women," she said.

Another seller in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, told the Global Times Sunday that people who have been disfigured are his big buyers, and they order a face that looks similar to their own.

"They even wear the masks to go shopping," he said, adding that clients can have their new face delivered to their home in about four days.

The shops claim their masks are safe to wear, but warn their products are for "entertainment purposes," apparently out of fear that they can be used by criminals, an assumption some people have made.

"Their concern is not groundless," Wu Boxin, a professor at Chinese People's Public Security University, told the Global Times. "Realistic fake faces do favor criminals, and the country does not have a regulation preventing their improper use. And there is no effective method to regulate the mask buyer's behavior."

Chen Hao, executive director of the Chongqing Bar Association, suggested that vendors keep a complete record of the buyer's identity, reported the Chongqing Evening News.

However, Jiang Liyong, lawyer of the Beijing-based Gao Peng Law Firm, told the Global Times that online sales of artificial faces are legitimate. "We don't have any regulations or laws restricting the sale of masks. The sellers are doing nothing wrong," said Jiang.

In November 2010, a young Asian man used a silicone mask to disguise himself as an elderly Caucasian as he boarded a flight to Canada. During the flight he took off the mask in the washroom but was nabbed by Canada Customs as he tried to enter the country.