"You See Me Down There More Than My Husband does!": A Qualitative Exploration of How Body Waxing Specialists Navigate Health Messages

With the rise of beauty salons and barber shops serving as sites for health promotion, it is essential to consider other similar contexts for health dissemination, including body waxing salons. This research draws on interviews with 13 body wax specialists from the largest waxing salon chain in the US to understand how health messages are navigated between waxers and their clients. Interviews revealed that body wax specialists respond to health-related conversations in three ways: (1) offering support and building rapport, (2) communicating in ways that threaten the waxer-client relationship, and (3) staying silent. The findings of this study illuminate waxing salons as important sites for health dissemination, specifically surrounding medical care of women's reproductive health.