Chapter 1: Cosmetic Entrepreneurs: Exploring Beliefs and Experiences of Practitioners Administering Non-surgical Aesthetic Procedures in the UK

Cosmetic surgery has long been a controversial pinnacle of invasive aesthetic labour, but in recent years, the cosmetic landscape has diversified and expanded. Minimally invasive, non-permanent cosmetic ‘tweakments’ like injectable 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 aesthetic practitioners across diverse spatialities, including beauty salons and spas. In light of discussions surrounding the legitimacy and scope of their business models in a sector where there currently exists little regulation, this chapter will focus on everyday cosmetic entrepreneurship(s) by aesthetic practitioners who offer non-surgical procedures. The vantage point of practitioners is key to exploring an increasingly saturated medico-cosmetic industry in the UK, and such perspectives have rarely been the focus in scholarly work, where motives and desires of cosmetic consumers have taken precedence. Using semi-structured interviews with practitioners focussing on their role(s) within these medico-cosmetic servicescapes, we situate non-surgical, often discreetly transformative, interventions firmly within everyday (gendered) routinized body projects.