"In Damage Control: Women on the Therapists, Beauticians, and Trainers Who Navigate Their Bodies," Emma Forrest shares a collection of essays, written by average women and celebrities, about their unique relationships with manicurists, hairstylists, masseurs and beauticians. Here's an excerpt:

In the pilot episode of ‘Nip/Tuck’ Sean yells at his brilliant ex-med student wife: “You shop, you lunch, you get your vagina waxed like a porn star”. It has, of course, crossed my mind that all this post-feminist primping is no more than a form of procrastination. The more we can achieve, the more body parts we find to 'maintain'. The mystery make-up artist in Chapter 3 disagrees with me: “Sometimes,” she says, “the only peace in a woman’s day is the twenty minutes when she’s getting her toes done, or her fingernails done. The only time she has when someone else is completely focusing on her. One of those rare opportunities when someone’s looking her in the eyes, and seeing what she needs.”

Which is interesting, because this book started off as ‘The Intimates’. Unfortunately marketing thought it was about underwear. I love lingerie, but I love people even more, specifically strangers, and that’s what this collection is about. The intimate strangers who work with the surface and get to the depths: If women tell their secrets to their hairdresser, what might they share, upside down on a masseuse’s table, or hand in hand with a manicurist? And what do you tell the esthetician when she doesn’t just see your scalp, she sees your vagina? In HD detail.  Laying on the waxing table, I always have to stop myself from grabbing her by the lapels and crying “Do our genitals haunt your nightmares?”  So I was glad to have, not only excellent essays by such a talented array of novelists, journalists, poets, actresses and comedians, but also interviews with the ‘intimates’ themselves: waxers, hairdressers, facialists, chiropractors, and the above quoted woman who is the in house make-up artist at one of the country’s biggest strip clubs. Who knew?

I am delighted to say this collection is full of “who knew”? You could start on page (TBC) where Maysan Haydar takes us into the world of Arab beauty rituals: veiled women beautifying for other veiled women (think about it).  Or start with Rachel Resnick’s travelogue as mystery, in which she spends a New Years Eve massage in Mexico, traversing her darkest holiday memory as a legendary masseuse traverses her body.

It is a particular pleasure to have in this collection Jennifer Belle, whose classic ‘Going Down’ I read standing up in DJ booth when I was seventeen. Jenny is truly one of America’s writing treasures, and here she writes about a spa certificate that led to an unexpected visit from the past.

Rose McGowan’s thoughts on beautician etiquette are as precise as truthful and funny as the actress herself. Rose sometimes reminds me of the little boy who says that the Emperor has no clothes and that’s why I didn’t mind when she once told me, apropos of nothing, that it only costs $500 to have your teeth whitened. Susie Essman you know as the perpetually enraged Susie Green of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. It’s fascinating to see her anger aimed at the way religion has curtailed female beauty (read empowerment) rituals.

To those who feared this collection might carry with it an air of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ or ‘Us and Them’, Marian Keyes ‘Hair Rage’ hilariously captures the intense intimidation factor that often comes with a salon visit.  In ‘By A Hair’, Samantha Dunn points out that a woman’s finances are still a taboo topic of discussion and shows just how far a girl who can’t pay rent will go to keep her color. If you’ve not read Samantha’s memoir ‘Faith In Carlos Gomez’ you soon will. Anyone who reads ‘By A Hair’ buys up all her books on Amazon. 

Minnie Driver has long been celebrated for her unique beauty. She writes about the kindly French hairdresser who tried to help the fourteen year old her see what she would one day become as she waddles, ugly duckling to her sister’s swan, through a miserable family holiday. I always knew Minnie was smart but I have to be honest, I am in awe of what a gifted, natural writer she is.

The British-Nigerian Helen Oyeyemi, whose debut novel last year - ‘The Icarus Girl’ - must have made her the most critically lauded teenager in New York Book Review history, writes about black hair in an Enid Blyton culture. It is one of five essays about hair and I think that’s because, as Maggie Paley explains in her charming essay ‘Felix Gets A Haircut’ (comparing her grooming regimen to her cat’s) hair is always with us. The runner up topic is bikini waxing which has four. For me the fascination is that, if we don’t need our vagina to make a living, we should care so much what the topiary looks like.

Sarah Jones, who won a Tony this year for her one woman show ‘Bridge and Tunnel’, is a great heroine of mine. I went for a pedicure with her and felt tremendous relief that someone who does as much good in the world with such rigorous intellect also likes having her toes painted. Her poem ‘A Wax Poetic’ questions how she and her waxer both got there. She is the essence of modern feminism. As the co-founder of ‘Bust’ magazine Marcelle Karp knows a lot about this. ‘Tender’ captures the intimidation factor of trying to be a tough chick whilst in bare assed, be-waxed agony. 

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