Special Issue of the Journal of Services Marketing
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall! Examining The Bright And Dark Side Of Face And Body Beautification/Modification Services
Guest Co-Editors: Phil Klaus and Rodoula H. Tsiotsou
Submission Deadline: 10 December 2020
Historically, humans have been collectively preoccupied with beauty. The nature of beauty itself has been the focus of aesthetics, a major field of study in Western Philosophy, and has occupied numerous philosophers, from Plato to Kant. Beauty has traditionally been counted among the ultimate values, with goodness, truth, and justice. People have been using beauty services since ancient times: the Egyptians used dark eyeliner and were the first to mark their bodies with tattoos; Cleopatra was taking baths in donkey milk to preserve her vitality and beauty; Greeks and Romans used to visit hammams to accomplish beauty and wellness. For the most part, these rituals were conducted by women, and were relatively secret: one had to uphold the idea that beauty was natural and effortless, not an artifice.
So how has the beauty industry, as old as the idea of beauty itself, become not only mainstream but also lauded as one of the best sectors? This is particularly notable in a time in which traditional industries are struggling, and in the extremely challenging times for the retail industry. Growth in the beauty industry, however, has boomed in recent years, in a trend that many link to a broader generational trend of attention to physical wellbeing. Millennials are often quoted as being the main drivers behind the meteoric growth of the beauty segment. The beauty industry is, in fact, quite broad: it includes services such as hair-salons, wellness centers, spas, barber shops, medical spas/injections, massage, waxing, permanent makeup, lashes, blow-out services, tattoo shops etc. In the United States alone, the beauty services sector employs over 670,000 people, and its job growth outlook is faster than average according to BLS data at a rate of 13% (2016-2026) while it was worth $532.43 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach a market value of $805.61 billion by 2023.
The rise of new beauty technologies, the Internet and social media propelled the beauty industry forward and change customer behavior in the related services. How beauty professionals and consumers learn about, buy and experience beauty services is changing faster than ever. Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is to examine the challenges and complexities of the beauty services and contribute to our understanding of these services. In line with the Journal of Services Marketing commitment to advancing services marketing theory and practice, we welcome contributions from a wide range of topics in relation to the beauty services industry.
The editors welcome targeted reviews of the scientific literature, which make a contribution to our understanding of the topic of interest and highlight significant gaps that require the development of new theory, research methods, and empirical work. The editors are also interested in new, contradictory work that highlights the impact of face and body modification and beautification services on customers, service businesses, and society. The editors further encourage submissions based upon collaboration with the business community, highlighting the practice of how beauty industry is being managed, and its impact on both, customers’ wellbeing, and business performance.
Topics covered include (but are not limited to):
• Customer Wellness
• Beauty and cosmetic procedures and surgery
• Gender-reassignment operations
• Plastic services as addictive behavior
• Cross-border beauty/modification services
• Tele-beauty services, e-beauty
• Stakeholders and beauty services
• Gender differences in beauty services
• The dark side of beauty services
• Different generations and beauty-related services
• Community based health care
• Beauty experiences and consequences
• Customer engagement in beauty and modification services
• Relevant theories in explaining customer behavior in beauty and modification services
• Sustainability of beauty services
• Cross culture and beauty services
• Beauty consumption and decision making
• Service failure in the beauty industry
JSM has a 2018 impact factor of 2.4, ranks #19 out of top 20 journals in marketing (source: 2019 Google Scholar), #67 out of 121 journals in the “Business” category (source: 2018 Journal Citation Reports) and is a Q1 (quartile 1) on the 2019 Scimago rankings.
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