Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon: Caring Beyond Skin Deep

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Hannah McCann

Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon

Name: Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon
Price: 180 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781666945836

Caring Beyond Skin Deep

Hannah McCann

$180

Hardback

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English

Rowman & Littlefield
08 January 2026

Gender studies, gender groups; Social & cultural anthropology; Fashion & beauty industries

Hair and beauty salons are a common feature of daily life, with salons seemingly on every street corner. What are we to make of this demand? Drawing on ethnographic and other methods, Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon suggests that salons are about more than just simply maintaining appearances. This book argues that salons are about care work, which involves responding to emotions through talk, managing bodies through touch, and curating identities through aesthetics. While feminists have long identified the impositions of ideals pushed by the beauty industry, there has been less attention to generative aspects of beauty culture. This book tries to put the care involved in salon work on the radar, examining how workers manage talk and their therapeutic-like roles, touch and physical intimacy, and identities via the curation of surfaces in the salon. In a context where visits to salons are often described by clients as “self-care”, this book is a reminder that someone else is often doing the work. This book highlights how salon workers provide clients with care that is often profoundly meaningful in terms of responding to emotions, bodies, and identities, and that this is indeed labour that ought to be valued and supported accordingly.

By: Hannah McCann
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 230mm, Width: 146mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9781666945836
ISBN 10: 1666945838
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 08 January 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction – Why Care Beyond Skin Deep? 1. Chapter One – Theory: The Impasse in Debating Beauty 2. Chapter Two – Real Life: Trying to Put Care on the Radar 3. Chapter Three – Representation: The Fictional Salon 4. Chapter Four – Emotions: Talk, Therapy, and Friendship in the Salon 5. Chapter Five – Bodies: Managing Touch and Physical Intimacy in the Salon 6. Chapter Six – Identities: Aesthetic Desires and Curating Surfaces in the Salon 7. Chapter Seven – Money: The Business of Salons Versus Authentic Care Conclusion – Caring in a Time of Crisis Bibliography

Hannah McCann is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Reviews for Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon: Caring Beyond Skin Deep

""Anybody who has researched in or simply been to hair and beauty salons knows that care is an unmissable aspect. And yet, care in hair and beauty work lacks adequate acknowledgement and theorization. In this book, Hannah McCann shows how beauty work is a profession unlike any other when it comes to the kind of care that must be provided -- care for emotions via talk, care for bodies via touch, and care for identities via aesthetic management. At the same time, Hannah's study does not romanticize salon workers but gives the reader a glimpse into the conditions under which they must provide this care. She carefully reviews the prejudices feminists have against all things beauty to show the sociological insights that can be gained by treating salons as places worthy of academic investigation. Her use of queer theory brings in a new lens to look at what hair and beauty salons can mean to their users. This book is a timely and insightful piece of scholarship."" * Nandita Dutta, University of Osnabruck *