Beauty salon- a marketplace icon

ABSTRACT

Beautification rituals are powerful elements of consumer cultures that transcend time and place. In an age of “moral terrorism” to “invest” in the body as an imperative, beauty salons -a twentieth century invention- have become a ubiquitous resource for individuals’ self-actualization through consumption. This market-mediated place dedicated to beauty services is less investigated than the extensive multidisciplinary literature available on beauty and the body. We argue in this paper that beauty salons achieve iconicity through the interplay of four critical dimensions that reinforce one another: (1) the spatial performances of withdrawal from the world, (2) the mediation of experiences of gendered intimacies, (3) the articulations of complex narratives of magical transformations, and (4) the subtle claims of medico-scientific truths that captivate consumers.

KEYWORDS:

• Beauty salon
• marketplace icon
• gender
• magic
• medicalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nacima Ourahmoune

Nacima Ourahmoune is a professor of Marketing and Consumer Culture at Kedge BS, France. Her research tackles topics related body politics, sexuality, gender equality and intersecting identity markers in Western and Post-colonial contexts. Her work appeared in Consumption, Markets & Culture, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of MacroMarketing, Journal of Consumer Behaviour.

Hounaida El Jurdi

Hounaida El Jurdi is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Olayan School of Business, AUB. Her research interests are focused on consumer culture in non-western contexts, with a specific focus on consumer identity, the body and the politics of representation. In terms of methodology, her approach is mainly interpretive and encompasses ethnographic research, historical research, hermeneutic analysis and action research. Her research is interdisciplinary in terms of theoretical grounding with a strong emphasis on transformative approaches and outcomes through the exploration of ethical implication of marketplace practices or topics with social impact. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Macromarketing, Journal of Consumer Marketing and in Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory Handbook.