Heinrichsmeier's book on the constructions of age in women's everyday talk in a British hair salon shows that discourses on hair, wellness, and appearance are important aspects for the construction of identity. Even though these notions are downplayed as trivial by the older women who visit the salon, socially connecting over these topics helps them while negotiating their way through their own and others’ expectations of aging. Heinrichsmeier explains how the hair salon is not only a site of conviviality, but also one of intimacy, since troubles-telling stories frequently occur between clients and hairdressers. During these conversations, the salon is considered a safe space where women are allowed to be vulnerable as they are being taken care of, both physically and emotionally. For these same reasons, it also becomes a place in which they encounter discourses around the constraints of aging and relevant and appropriate ‘older’ styles which they feel pressured to adopt themselves. Constraints such as the decreasing roles and activities for older people, the physical changes, and the internalization of widely held beliefs about aging by themselves and their interlocutors thus become important aspects for the women to negotiate their identities.

The book contains six analytical chapters, which discuss individual markers used by the women to negotiate their own identity around these constraints. Chapters 3 and 4 show how age-relevant words are used by participants to construct separate categories of ‘old’ and ‘not yet old’. By using terms such as ‘as I age’ and ‘when she gets older’, the women assign their own and others’ memberships to either group. In chapters 5 and 6 the appearance management of the older women is discussed, in which they tell stories to negotiate their stances between either spending ‘too little’ or ‘too much’ time on the way they look, hoping to come across as finding just the right balance. Chapter 7 explains the concept of ‘busy stories’, which are narratives in which the women disclose how they stay active and engaged. By doing so, they show how they see themselves and reveal the intent of being seen by others as ‘aging well’. Ultimately, chapter 8 shows how these discursive strategies in concert should be seen as specific markers used by older women to construct their social identities.

Heinrichsmeier's study is distinctly local as its only focus is a single hair salon in rural Britain, but it does provide a convincing take on the hair salon as an important yet often overlooked sociolinguistic site for the study of everyday talk. The work is an in-depth ethnographic study, yet simultaneously engages with this larger discussion on the importance of beauty and wellness spaces as important sites of identity construction. The book is convincing in arguing how the salon is an essential site of female identity and power, and of significant importance for women (re)negotiating their own identities around the ideologies of aging.