Putting on a good face: An examination of the emotional and aesthetic roots of presentational labour

When we put on a good face we are claiming a set of approved social attributes – presenting an image of who/what we wish to be accepted as and taken for, by others. As Erving Goffman puts it, we have a good face when we fit an image others have of, for example, our profession, by making a good showing of ourselves (Goffman, 1967: 5). There is a large body of literature on the emotional labour of controlling and showing an emotional good face, that is, the work to preserve a professional and a corporate ‘face’, even if that entails hiding or disguising one’s personal emotions. Another smaller body of literature, building on the concept of emotional labour, is that describing aesthetic labour . Aesthetic labour is the selling of one’s embodied ‘face’, or approved social attributes, to create and preserve a professional and/or corporate image – often described as ‘looking good and sounding right’. Emotional and aesthetic literacy are fundamentally communication concepts requiring sophisticated perceptual as well as messaging skills. Using hairstylists as exemplars, I examine the close and personal relationships stylists enjoy with their clients as they toil, behind the chair but in the mirror, gathering insight into the relationship between emotional labour and aesthetic labour, and to the acquisition of emotional and aesthetic literacy that is essential to the effective performance of presentational labour .