Aesthetic entrepreneurs

Cosmetic surgery has long been a controversial pinnacle of invasive aesthetic labour, with recent years seeing an expansion and diversification of the medical cosmetic landscape. Minimally invasive, non-permanent cosmetic ‘tweakments’ like dermal fillers are increasingly embedded amongst, and advertised as, ‘everyday’ beauty practices. This normalization has been enabled by the accessibility of these procedures, both in terms of lower costs and locations where they are offered. In many cases, non-surgical procedures have migrated beyond medical locales and, in the UK, can be administered by a range of cosmetic practitioners in wider beauty industry settings, like hair salons and spas.

This shift in ‘gatekeepers’ of cosmetic procedures in the UK highlights contested professional boundaries. There have been repeated calls in the last decade for robust regulation of non-surgical procedures, particularly related to who can carry out procedures and where they can be performed. In addition, the ease of obtaining non-surgical procedures, and the often informal ways they are advertised, has (re)ignited debates about gendered pressures to alter appearances that reflect both pervasive and temporary aesthetic trends.

In light of discussions surrounding the legitimacy and scope of their business models, this project focuses on everyday beauty entrepreneurship(s) by cosmetic practitioners who offer non-surgical procedures. Practitioners are key to exploring types of body projects undertaken by their clients, and demonstrate how relationships with clients feed into advertising, testimonials, and new/repeat business. Such perspectives have rarely been the focal point in scholarly work, where motives and desires of cosmetic consumers have taken precedence. By focusing on the role of practitioners within cosmetic servicescapes, we situate non-surgical, often discreetly transformative, interventions within everyday (gendered) routinized body projects.