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Damage Control: Women on the Therapists, Beauticians, and Trainers Who Navigate Their Bodies

by Emma Forrest

Personal essays on beauty work, body image, and the people behind the services

Regular price $18.51 USD
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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Personal essays on beauty work, body image, and the people behind the services

Edited by Emma Forrest, Damage Control gathers women’s accounts of the therapists, beauticians, trainers, and other specialists entrusted with intimate forms of care. Its stories range from encounters in makeup chairs and salons to experiences involving massage, chi gong, tattooing, and cosmetic surgery. The collection treats these professional relationships as more than transactions: they can become sites of confession, friendship, frustration, aspiration, and vulnerability. By placing everyday grooming alongside more consequential bodily interventions, the book examines the pressures and hopes bound up in seeking transformation, maintenance, or reassurance from someone else’s hands.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in essay collections about beauty culture and body image
  • Fans of personal writing centered on salons, wellness practices, and cosmetic work
  • Those seeking women’s perspectives on care, self-presentation, and vulnerability

Themes

Body imageBeauty cultureSelf-care and transformationIntimacy and professional careCosmetic intervention

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Traditionally, women share their secrets with their hairdressers. But what about their manicurists, masseurs, chi gong teachers, and tattoo artists? In Damage Control, women wax poetic about the experts and gurus who help them love themselves, sharing stories of everything from friendships born in the make-up chair to the utter dismay of a truly horrible haircut.

Minnie Driver finally meets a Frenchman who understands her hair . . . and tries to teach her not to hate it.

Marian Keyes remembers the blow-dry that pushed her over the edge.

Francesca Lia Block tells the ugly story of the plastic surgeon who promised to make her beautiful.

Rose McGowan explains why it's harder to be depressed when you're glamorous . . . and shows how it takes a village to transform from mere mortal to movie star.

Witty and wise, Damage Control is an intimate, sometimes dark, look at our experiences with the professionals who pluck, prod, and pamper every inch of our bodies--and a reminder why we surrender ourselves to their (hopefully) very capable hands.

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