2024. N 26

The modern beauty industry is a multifaceted and rapidly evolving field that encompasses a diverse range of cosmetic and aesthetic services. Focusing on invasive and high-risk beauty procedures such as aesthetic body modifications (tattooing and piercing), this study examines the underlying motivations for consumers to engage in shadow sector beauty services and the mechanisms of consumer risk management in conditions of elevated medical risks. Based on semi-structured interviews with 17 adult consumers of tattooing and piercing services from the informal sector, the following socio-economic motivations for preferring unlicensed practitioners were identified: cost-savings, low levels of trust in the salon industry, elements of experience economy, a desire for private and ritualistic atmosphere, prioritization of artistic taste and expertise over potential risks, and perceiving medicalized risks as minimal. Consumers fear coercive risks and aesthetic expenses. Three typical scenarios of involvement in the shadow sector of body modification services include searching for a practitioner through personal networks, searching for a master on specialized platforms, and consuming body modification services in a third place. In all cases, the role of a mediator is crucial in initiating the first contact between the client and the practitioner. The reciprocal economy of body modifications performs multiple functions, including social inclusion into specific groups. The primary subjective motivations of the home economy of body modifications are cost savings and recreational activity.

The presented review highlights the main results of the international conference “Youth Agency and Resilience in the Age of Global Challenges”, held at the Center for Youth Studies of the Higher School of Economics — St. Petersburg from October 31 to November 1, 2024. The conference was timed to coincide with the fifteenth anniversary of the Center and became a place of attraction for researchers from 11 regions of Russia, as well as Brazil, Argentina and India. The discussion focused on such research issues as youth agency, migration of young people, consumer practices and attitudes of young people, transition to adulthood, local identities of young people, inclusion of young people in the political field, young people in the labor market and in the digital environment.