When the mirror reflects wrinkles, weight gain and gray hair at a society valuing the young, where is an older woman to turn? A DePaul University researcher who studied this oft-neglected demographic group found that the beauty shop is a vital cultural ally offering affirmation when the impact of aging has taken hold.

Frida Kerner Furman, a social ethicist and associate professor of religious studies at DePaul, spent 18 months observing a Chicago hair and nail salon, interviewing 20 women aged 55 to 86 in-depth about their lives and self-concept.

She compiled her findings, along with revealing excerpts from the interviews, in a new book called "Facing the Mirror, Older Women and Beauty Shop Culture" (Routledge $16.95).

Furman discovered that salons are an important, but unrecognized support system for older women, one of the fastest growing, yet under-researched, groups in America.

Customers she studied, whose average age was 73.5 years, not only discussed aches, pains and body change, but caregiving, personal health and societal pressures to look younger despite the biological realities of aging.

"In the book I make ethical judgments by locating sources of pain and injustice in ordinary women's lives," Furman said. "Many of us hold ageist and sexist assumptions. While older women share some things in common, each person is quite distinctive."

The book investigates the role of femininity, aging and caregiving among older, Jewish women at Julie's International Salon, a pseudonym for the shop Furman studied, much like Mitchell Duneier's "Slim's Table" did with race, masculinity, and respectability among African-American men at Valois, a cafeteria in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

Furman described the social atmosphere of support and self-deprecating humor that defined the shop, and noted that laughing at oneself may be a method of bonding with other women facing the same circumstances.

"The beauty salon serves as a community of resistance where women can reject social pressures unjustly placed on them," Furman said.

She identified distinctive behavioral characteristics that emerged from the primarily Jewish customers, such as kisses, hugs and verbal affirmations, and questioned them about what it means to "look Jewish." Their answers indicated that these women's identities were often influenced by how others reacted to them. Some of their poignant responses also uncovered deep pain the women experienced as a result of stereotypes and anti-Semitism.

Furman, who is Jewish herself, came to the United States from Chile when she was 13. She has been on DePaul's faculty since 1986 and incorporates her research into classes she teaches in religious studies, women's studies and liberal studies.