The transformation scene in The Princess Diaries left a mark on generations of curly-haired children who watched as Mia Thermopolis’ mane broke the brush. But anyone who regularly shops in the natural hair aisle knows that Mia needed a good leave-in conditioner and cleansing shampoo. So is Hermione Granger.
Miers and Hermiones of the world, white people with unruly curls, are turning to black hair products like Miel Organics’ Rosemary Mint Hair Oil, which went viral and disappeared from shelves last year. Black hair care products are typically made for people with curly or coarse hair, but mainstream brands often use ingredients that aren’t suitable for caring for those hair types. Previously, “curl-friendly” and “curl-unfriendly” were effectively separated into “black” and “white” categories, but a wave of hair education on TikTok has blurred the line between the two. It became vague.
The few companies that target black hair types often fall short. Currently, Black-owned hair care brands face the conflict of developing new formulations and marketing aimed at those with looser curls or maintaining small product lines aimed at their most loyal consumers. Masu.
“Time and again, we have seen black brands seem to be trying to move away from this consumer group in order to capture a wider market share,” said Ibi Mayer Oluyitemeka, founder of Afro Hair & Skin. ” he said. “It’s understandable why companies often feel the need to diversify or expand their markets. But if everyone caters to everyone, quality and effectiveness will definitely be affected.”
Black hair and the Black hair care industry have always been inextricably linked to racism. In particular, black people with coarser curls tend to be least served by brands and are most affected by textureism. Black people face discrimination in the workplace for having natural hair, and drugstore chains have blocked hair care products aimed at Black women and other women of color. This, in addition to years of structural pressure that normalized perms, Jheri curls, and relaxers, and the subsequent natural hair movement, encouraged Black people to embrace their natural hair textures.
But ever since the days of Madam CJ Walker, the entrepreneur who became America’s first female billionaire by selling hair care products for black women, the black hair care industry has proven lucrative. Black consumers have made the hair care market a huge one, estimated to be worth about $4.5 billion by 2034. Additionally, the market share of black-owned businesses in general hair care reached $2.5 billion in 2021, according to marketing intelligence agency Mintel.
“Companies are telling themselves that the market is too small to waste time on black people and people of color,” Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, told Slate. “But they don’t take into account those consumer networks. Everything that’s popular started as something small, a subculture, or a niche thing.”
White consumers’ acceptance of hair care products aimed at Black people is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s been 20 years since the Curly Girl Method entered the lexicon, and now TikTok is full of people trying out products from Black-owned brands like Camille Rose and Flora & Curl and showing off how well they work for their curls. There are a lot of white users.
Case in point: After Alix Earle, a white influencer with nearly 7 million TikTok followers, endorsed Mierre Hair Oil in a December 2022 video, the product quickly went viral, selling out in drugstores across the United States and selling out. This caused dissatisfaction among many black consumers. These are people who no longer have access to the products they’ve relied on for years. A few months later, Procter & Gamble acquired the brand, following in the footsteps of companies like Unilever and L’Oréal, which have acquired black-owned brands that have become popular (Shea Moisture and Carol’s Daughter, respectively). Many former supporters of these brands have criticized the post-acquisition formula. Those customers then go elsewhere.
Retail analyst Marie Driscoll said, “When P&G (a company like) acquires a brand, it typically grows the brand, increases distribution, and potentially leverages the brand’s heat to create new products. The intention is to create.”
White consumers’ interest in these brands is likely to increase, meaning these types of acquisitions will become more common. And that means brands are likely to change their marketing strategies, Mayer-Oluyitemeka said.
“You can see the evidence of that by looking at keyword trends,” she said. “Current hair trends are determined by how people search. Understanding and applying the term ‘curly’, which was once an umbrella term for almost any hair that is not straight, There have definitely been big changes. ”
Black-owned brands are also reaching a more diverse audience through TikTok, sponsoring non-Black creators and commissioning user-generated content (also known as UGC). Whitney White, founder of Melanin Haircare, said the brand made sure to choose “influencers that represent the demographics that we naturally see in the content that is naturally shared.”* That means including white creators.
Marketing strategies may be restructured, but the product itself does not necessarily have to change when the company changes. Collins points to Bevel, a grooming brand designed for men of color, as a product line that has actually improved since the P&G acquisition.
“Bevel still cares about the people it serves, so I still feel like they’re talking to me,” he says, adding that Bevel is designed for coarse and curly hair. He cited the company’s expansion into razors and a partnership with Nas. As an example.
As long as a product works, people will continue to buy it, regardless of who or which company holds the keys to the brand. That should be the unifying principle for companies looking to corner a niche market.
Stephanie Scott Bradshaw, CEO of PR firm First & Last, said catering to white and non-Black consumers means black-owned hair care brands are reaching their original customer base. He says it doesn’t have to mean distancing. Hair care brands need to target every consumer segment their products can benefit from.
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Take Beyoncé’s recently debuted hair care line, Cécred, for example. The packaging is very generic, just a simple black and white bottle and no images, just some text. The brand’s Instagram page features models of various ethnic backgrounds and hair types. However, Secred has made a concerted effort to highlight its black-owned origins in media coverage.
The packaging for Skimdo products is similarly minimalist, and the brand name itself makes no reference to its Black-owned roots. Kimberly Cowans, a mixed-race black woman, founded the company 10 years ago. Early versions of the product were aimed at people like her who had looser curls. The brand’s Instagram feed features models of different ethnic backgrounds and different curl types.
“I center people of color while showing that people of all skin types can and are welcome to use our products,” Cowans said of her marketing strategy. He added that, for better or worse, companies that start out small and specific will eventually want to accommodate as many types of customers as possible.
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When a large company acquires a small brand, investors “can decide the budget and the margin they want, and unfortunately that (could) mean making the formulation cheaper,” she said. said.
That often means that white consumers are prioritized. In addition to expensive ingredients, increased interest among white consumers means companies are likely to pursue weaker formulas made with looser hair textures in mind. Masu. That comes at the expense of those with tight curls, Cowans says. Specifically, a black man with 4C hair.
“It’s the same logic that the cosmetics industry has for dark-skinned people,” she says. In other words, it “costs more money” to create products for them.
“But let me tell you, it’s worth including them,” she said. “Look at the purchasing power of black people in the beauty industry? It’s amazing. It’s good for the economy and it’s good for humanity, so we should serve them.”
Correction, June 28, 2024: This article originally incorrectly attributed a quote from Whitney White to her PR representative.
