Hair, the Hairdresser and the Everyday Practices of Women's Hair Care
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Hair, The Hairdresser and The Everyday Practices of Women's Hair Care by Helen Holmes PhD Thesis Department of Geography March 2010 THESIS CONTAINS CDIDVD PAGES MISSING IN ORIGINAL Dedicated to the late David Holmes (1949-1998) Table of Contents List of Figures Vll Acknowledgements IX Summary of Thesis xi 1. Roots 1 1.1 Why Hair? 4 1.2 The Ethnography 8 1.3 This Thesis 23 2. Setting-Up Hair 27 2.1 The Absence of Hair 30 2.2 The Hair Salon: Work, Bodies, Identities 41 2.3 (Re)positioning Hair and The Hair Salon 50 3. Servicing 63 3.1 Gendered Space, Gendered Work 66 3.2 Emotional Labour 68 3.3 The Unique Relationship 74 3.4 Aesthetic Labour 81 3.5 Bodywork 92 3.6 Conclusion 99 4. Crafting 103 4.1 Hairdressing as Craft Production 106 4.2 The Palimpsest of Hair: Completely Unique 119 4.3 The Moments of Production 123 4.4 Conclusion 146 5. Doing-It-Yourself 149 5.1 The DIY Hair Project 153 5.2 The 'Everyday' Practices of Hair Washing 155 5.3 The 'Every So Often' or 'Not-At-All' Practices of Home Colouring 159 5.4 Rupturing the Routine: Hair Straightening 165 5.5 Revising PracticeslRefining Routines 181 5.6 Conclusion 185 6. Returning 189 6.1 Material Maintenance 193 6.2 Weekly Maintenance: Habit, Celebration & Socialness 195 6.3 Regular Maintenance: A Disguise for 'Time Out' 201 6.4 The Luxury of Maintenance 205 6.5 Pure Maintenance and Time Wasting 207 6.6 Ruptures to Maintenance: Seasonality, Festivities & Payday 212 6.7 Conclusion 215 v 7. Conclusions 225 7.1 Labours of Care 226 7.2 Bodies 'Becoming' 229 7.3 Choreographies of Practice 231 7.4 The Labour Process 233 7.5 From Roots to Ends 235 Appendices 237 Appendix A: History of Hairdressing 239 Appendix B: Profiles of Kirby's staff 251 Appendix C: Profiles of participants 254 Appendix D: ghd™ profile 256 Bibliography 257 VI List of Figures Figures Figure 1.1 Diagram of Kirby's layout 13 Figure 1.2 Snapshot of salon appointment diary 14 Figure 1.3 Photographs of college work and blocks 18 Figure 1.4 Photographs of highlighting at college 19-20 Figure 3.1 Consultation sheet 86-87 Figure 4.1 Photographs of perming 112-114 Figure 4.2 Photograph of hairdressers scissors 114 Figure 4.3 Photographs of hair being combed ready to be cut 115 Figure 4.4 Photographs of sectioning, combing and cutting hair 116-118 Figure 4.5 Diagram of a hair follicle 121 Figure 4.6 Photograph of colouring 127 Figure 4.7 Photograph of the Effleurage hair washing technique 131 Figure 4.8 Photograph of the Petrissage hair washing technique 131 Figure 4.9 Photograph of the Friction hair washing technique 132 Figure 4.10 Photograph of cut hair 138 Figure 4.11 Photographs of styling long hair with a hairdryer 138-139 Figure 4.12 Photograph showing the moment of 'The final reveal' 144 Figure 5.1 Photographs of ghd™ styling guide & DVD 168-169 Figure 5.2 Example of ghd™ advertising 180 Figure 6.1 Snapshot from the salon appointment diary JunlJul 2008 219 Figure 6.2 Bar chart showing Dec 2007 salon appointment totals 221 Figure 6.3 Dec 2007 salon appointment figures by type 220 vii Figure 6.4 Photographs of Christmas window display & decoration 221-222 Figure 6.5 Photograph of Valentine's window display 222 Figure 6.6 Photograph of Easter window display 223 Figure 6.7 Bar chart comparing Feb2008 to Jul2008 appointments 223 Salon Videos (see enclosed DVD) Video 1 Cutting Video 2 Highlighting/streaking Video 3 Hair washing Video 4 Hair drying and styling Video 5 Straightening hair Video 6 Setting hair Video 7 Removing set from hair viii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Nicky Gregson for the countless hours she has devoted to me and this thesis. I cannot really do justice here to how grateful I am for all her help and support over the last four years - thank you! I would also like to thank my second supervisors, Jess Dubow and Eric Olund, for the vast amount of time and attention they have given me throughout my PhD, and for always being available to answer queries, read drafts and provide comments! Their encouragement has been invaluable, especially over these last few months. My gratitude also goes out to all of the participants who kindly agreed to take part in my research and were more than happy to answer what may initially have appeared as some rather strange questions! Of course, in discussing my research I must also mention the salon. Without Kirby's none of this research would have been possible and, although I cannot disclose the salon's identity, I am immensely grateful for being given the opportunity to work there and meet such lovely people. I would particularly like to thank: Patricia for letting me loose in the salon and not showing too much dismay at my various misdemeanours; Parr for his eternal wit, and his willingness to explain even the most simplest of hairdressing practices to me several times over; and Linney for her honesty and helpfulness. My gratitude to my friends and family goes without saying. Over the last few years, there have been many points where I have been on the verge of wanting to pull out my own hair, let alone write about anyone else's! Therefore: mum, Sarah, Debs, Gill and everyone else who has put up with some sort of rant/moan/cry off me over the years - thanks! Lastly, I would like to thank Nick - for keeping me sane, never wavering in support, and for coping so well with living with a self-confessed workaholic! Thank you. ix x Summary of Thesis This thesis is concerned with reclaiming hair as a site of everyday practice and the role of the hairdresser as a skilled craft worker. Focusing upon the blindingly obvious substance of hair, it explores the lively and inimitable qualities which make hair truly unique to each of us. It is this uniqueness, or as I term it, the palimpsest of hair, that influences everything we do with hair, from our regular hairdressing appointment to its everyday home maintenance. Engaging with social and cultural geographies, this thesis speaks to bodily geographies, and workplace geographies. However, its key thematics are also drawn from wider approaches, particularly practice-based approaches, materiality and craft production. Using practice as a lens through which to research hair, the thesis tracks the customer journey from hair salon to home and back again, illustrating how the hairdresser, the palimpsest of hair and hair's wearer converge and diverge. Beginning in the salon, I highlight how the relationship between hairdresser and client does not always conform to the scripted encounters attributed to other forms of service work, but can involve genuine feelings and individualised performances. Through the practices of hair production, I illuminate the craft of hairdressing, demonstrating how the hairdresser and customer co-corporeally produce the palimpsest of hair. Moving from the salon into the home, I discuss how the customer reproduces their hair at home, through what I term the DIY hair project. I convey how these DIY hair practices are bound by normalised anxieties, articulated through individual temporalities. Finally, I explore the customer's return to the salon and how the temporalities of the salon appointment illuminate the choreographies of women's lives. Thus, I contend that hair is a substance worthy of academic study and should be included in debates on the politics of the body and of the everyday. xi When I was seven they cropped it and I looked like a boy. I cried for about six months, well not six months but for a good couple of weeks. And people laughed at me in school. That scarred me for life, but I've always been (.3) I think that's why I've had my hair long for so long because I was scared of like going in and having it cutoff. (Jennifer, Focus Group 2) Now this is a bit of a story because after I had both my children my hair fell out, it fell out in droves. It happened both times. It was the second time I got pneumonia. While I was pregnant it was brilliant, my hair was lovely. When I gave birth to Josh my hair was lovely, really, really nice, and then I fed him, and the minute I stopped feeding him at three months my hair started to fall out, (.3) erm gradually. And like it was long when I'd had Josh and like you'd pick him up out of the Moses basket, anybody came visiting, and there was hair everywhere. There was hair all over the house, there was hair everywhere, and then it started to grow back, after a few months. But I could run my hand through my head, and it wouldfeellike a man's beard! (Carolyn, Interview) Afew years ago I was blonde, I had blonde highlights. Erm but when I first started having them I went to this place in Anytown and I came out and it was proper stripey, like really ..... It was awful. So I put up with it for a few months and then my mum was sick of me going on about it. And she said "Right I'm going to sort this out. You're going to go to Gerry's and get this done." So she said "I'll help you pay.