Civilizing the Other: Beauty, Intimate Labor, and Affective Encounters in Berlin’s Brazilian Waxing Studios

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, waxing (hair removal) studios have emerged in central Berlin and grown rapidly in number. Specializing in the “Brazilian method,” this beauty salon sector has increasingly been occupied by Brazilian migrants. In addition to being a simple hair removal service, I argue that the intimate work carried out in these salons encompasses an educational and even civilizing effort from the point of view of Brazilian depiladoras: The intimacy of their work allows for affective encounters in which Brazilian women are not seen merely as service providers. They embody the specialist in a form of beauty and femininity that is desired by German clients. Appropriating these rare moments of intimacy, Brazilian depiladoras act as educators not only for a more hygienic and more feminine corporeality but also for a more humanized sociality with the “other.” Based on long-term ethnographic research in Berlin, I discuss both the agency of beauty work and its limits within the coloniality of feminized and ethnicized labor.