Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics

An introduction to Japan's burgeoning beauty culture, which investigates a 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. It aims to challenge various assumptions about the naturalness of beauty standards. "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 clichés 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 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…