The Beauty Industry: Gender, Culture, Pleasure

by Paula Black

Overview

The beauty industry is now a multinational, multi-million dollar business. In recent years its place in contemporary culture has altered hugely as salons have become not simply places to have your hair cut or your nails done, but increasingly sites of physical and even spiritual therapy.

In this fascinating and nuanced study, Paula Black strips away many popular assumptions about the beauty industry, including the one that says it exploits people's insecurity by projecting an illusory beauty myth. The interviews in this book - both with the beauty industry's workers and its clients - reveal a far more complex and interesting picture, and, in their presentation, Black re-formulates many feminist debates around choice and constraint.

The debates addressed include issues around the body; the construction and maintenance of gender identity; changing definitions of health and well-being; and labour processes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134356409
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/02/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Paula Black

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1. 'Ordinary People Come Through Here': Introducing the Work of the Beauty Salon 2. Inventing Beauty: The History of the Beauty Salon 3. Just Because It Feels Good Doesn't Make It Right? Identity in the Beauty Salon 4. The Hidden Labour of Beauty 5. Look Good, Feel Better: Promoting Health in the Beauty Salon 6. You Feel Better When You Leave: Some Concluding Comments 7. Bibliography