Beauty consumerism and identity: unveiling the meanings behind young adult Singaporean women’s beauty consumption

• Main Author: Soh, Saphira Amir
• Other Authors: Dina Delias
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70005
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study seeks to understand the relationship between women’s beauty consumption and their identity construction by uncovering the meanings behind their beauty practices and the role that beauty practices play in their presentations of selves. Through snowball sampling, 11 in-depth interviews were conducted with Singaporean women of different races, aged 21-25 years old. The study revealed that women’s beauty practices are regarded as creative experiences, an avenue for self-expression and have a positive effect on women’s self-confidence and self- image. In analyzing their experiences, the author illuminates how women actively negotiate their appearances to achieve impression goals, and how race and cultural beauty ideals intersect, forming a dissonance between their racial and Asian identities; where race is conflated with ethnicity in the context of Singapore.