Beauty Up

This engaging introduction to Japan's burgeoning beauty culture investigates a wide range of phenomenon - aesthetic salons, dieting products, male beauty activities, and beauty language - to find out why Japanese women and men are paying so much attention to their bodies. Laura Miller uses social science and popular culture sources to connect breast enhancements, eyelid surgery, body hair removal, nipple bleaching, and other beauty work to larger issues of gender ideology, the culturally-constructed nature of beauty ideals, and the globalization of beauty technologies and standards. Her sophisticated treatment of this timely topic suggests that new body aesthetics are not forms of "deracializiation" but rather innovative experimentation with identity management. While recognizing that these beauty activities are potentially a form of resistance, Miller also considers the commodification of beauty, exploring how new ideals and technologies are tying consumers even more firmly to an ever-expanding beauty industry. By considering beauty in a Japanese context, Miller challenges widespread assumptions about the universality and naturalness of beauty standards.

ISBN 0520245091   Pages 271 ISBN13 9780520245099 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher The University Press Group Ltd   Weight (grammes) 428 Imprint University of California Press   Published in CA Format Paperback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 15 Jul 2006   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress 2005016386   Spine width (mm) 22 DEWEY 306.40952   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

		Introduction : approaches to body aesthetics and the beauty system		1
1		Changing beauty ideology		19
2		Aesthetic salons		40
3		Mammary mania		71
4		Body fashion and beauty etiquette		100
5		Male beauty work		125
6		The well-behaved appetite		159
7		The language of Esute		176
8		Esute power		195

"This is a very well researched, thoughtful, and engagingly written study of some of the hottest areas of Japan's beauty industry. Always careful to avoid easy generalizations or cliches about Japanese culture, Miller shows both the diversity of Japanese beauty practices and perceptions, and their dramatic shifts in recent years. Her critical yet sensitive descriptions of Japan's consumers and her critiques of Euro-American understandings about them will leave the reader reflecting as much about the 'West' as about Japan." - Takashi Fujitani, author of Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan"

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