This study is a result of an exploratory qualitative study aimed at verifying and analyzing how physical beauty is perceived and how its presence/absence affects the daily immaterial labor of workers in banking. Therefore, 12 groups were formed with 265 participants —134 women and 131 men—from the same bank in the public sector. This analysis followed the guidelines of Minayo and was supported by relevant literature, highlighting stimulus control, achievement and maintenance of physical beauty, and its consequent naturalization. The results allow us to understand physical beauty as a way of climbing the career ladder, responsible for managerialism, defining the visibility/invisibility of bodies, and a cause of psychological distress. Therefore, the managerialist management is considered to benefit physical appearance. Its human consequences include rejection and adhesion, and it can also act as an obstacle to career progression. It lacks disclosure, although it composes elements associated with lifestyle production (Deleuze, 1998) in the "liquid modern" society.
Labour; Body; Physical Appearance; Lifestyle