As a Black woman, haircare has always been a massive part of my story. Large chunks of my childhood memory are filled with recollections of my younger self crawling onto kitchen countertops to get my hair washed by my mom and auntie. Memories of my mom asking me to grab an old towel, so she could oil my scalp before bed, her directions to cover my ear so the hot comb wouldn’t burn my scalp, or eating Cheetos bags in the waiting lobby while my mom got her hair done.
I vividly remember when I learned that my white friends would get their haircare from grocery stores or large retailers like Walmart or Target. I explained to one of them that my mom and I were planning to visit “the hair store,” as we called it, before one of my braid appointments. My white friend’s response was one of confusion, even astonishment: “There’s a hair store?”
A relic of the past
Growing up, the products my non-Black friends were on a first-name basis with were ones I only ever saw in commercials. (I won’t get into specifics, because that’s not the point of this piece, but anyone who’s felt excluded from conventional beauty standards can probably guess them.) The onslaught of images of white actresses with strawberry blonde blowouts holding these products felt like a message that these formulas weren’t for me, a girl with thick, coarse, coily hair. And I’m sure the same can be said (though on a smaller scale, as Black hair products barely get the backing to have national television ads) that straight or wavy-haired girls couldn’t imagine a product marketed towards coils and curls being for them either.
Subconsciously, the message I received from the people and places around me was that there was a place for me, and people like me, and there was a place for everyone else.
The beauty supply store was always there for us, though. As far back as I can remember, that was always a decidedly Black thing. The aisles were filled with items I often heard referred to as “Black products”: Blue Magic and JAM, Luster’s Pink Lotion and African Pride, Creme of Nature and Olive Miracle.
But the big-box chains and supercenters were different. Products for my hair texture were relegated to specific aisles and shelves. I was always taught that separating goods or services based on race was a faded stain on American history—something in the past, far from the present. Yet, it’s hard to ignore the unspoken separation in the haircare aisle, where products are still quietly divided, and it can impact the success of Black-owned businesses. You will rarely see a white woman picking up a bottle of TGIN shampoo. This doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try it, by any means, but that feels like the inevitable message if the products she’s used to seeing (and purchasing) are in separate areas.
Conditioning away from my comfort zone
As a teen, I tried to experiment and learn how to care for my hair on my own. Of the innumerable brands I’ve tried over the years, some have stuck (Camille Rose, TGIN), while others have left the rotation, permanently. The one thing I couldn’t seem to perfect, however, was my conditioner. Everything I’ve tried feels as if the product was sitting on top of my hair strands, never fully moisturizing the hair, or have left my hair somehow less soft than before use.
College graduation was on the horizon, and there was a feeling of a silk press calling my name for the occasion. And there I was, in the shampoo bowl, getting prepped for the flat iron to straighten my coils. After the heavenly massage, I braced myself for the winces that usually accompanied the conditioning and detangling process. It was over in maybe seven minutes. When she was done, I asked, “What conditioner is that?” To my surprise, she informed me that the conditioner in question hailed from a brand I’d previously written off.
In passing, I’d seen the company in question while shopping in Sephora, but its marketing—what I saw of it, at least—drove me away. All its promotional materials at the time seemed to spotlight women with hair on the opposite end of the spectrum from mine. As I sat in my appointment, scrolling through the hair-care brand’s website—which still mostly featured majority white models—I contemplated the irony of its conditioner being one of the most efficient and hydrating formulas my hair had ever seen.
This moment acted as a catalyst for other revelations. Rather than reviewing each product for its ingredients, the concerns it targeted, or its formulation (“low porosity,” “sulfate-free,” and so on), I realized that marketing had influenced my decisions more than any other factor.
Strangely, this was not the case for any other part of my beauty routine. When it comes to makeup, for instance, I never dismissed a blush, gloss, or concealer simply because the person in an ad didn’t look like me. At the end of the day, a product is a product—it either works for you or it doesn’t.
There are, of course, instances where this blanket rule does not apply. There are certain gels that would be too heavy for those with straight hair or too light for those with coily hair. Some curling creams or custards work better for looser curls than tighter ones; it’s a spectrum. And, prior to Black women innovators like Madam C.J. Walker and Annie Malone changing the beauty industry during the Jim Crow Era, brands simply weren’t manufacturing haircare products for textured hair. The birth of racial categorization began to define the haircare space and its marketing, both for representation and out of necessity.
But for the basics—shampoos, conditioners, hair oils—women of all races and hair types should be open to trying products they might think aren’t “for” them. Especially Black women. During July of this year, lawmakers introduced the Safer Beauty Bill Package—legislation targeting the harmful beauty ingredients in certain products disproportionately marketed towards Black women that cause health conditions such as breast cancer, adverse reproductive effects, and more.
“All women should be open to trying products they might think aren’t ‘for’ them.”
Some might (and have) argued against aisle unification. To them, the separation of “mainstream” and “ethnic” categories allows for easy navigation of the haircare aisle; the convenience of an aisle curated by merchandisers telling you that these selection of products will be the best for you. But, despite the makeup industry’s history of manufacturing limited shade ranges, we don’t question the discernment of darker-skinned makeup enthusiasts to navigate the integrated aisles and sections to find the specific products they need.
There have been mainstream moments of inclusive thinking being put into practice. Dabur, an Indian haircare brand, makes Amla Oil, which has been extremely well-received in the Black community, with Black women championing the oil for their hair growth all over social media. Or consider Mielle Organics, the Black woman-founded hair company behind Rosemary Mint Scalp Oil, which rapidly flew off Target shelves in 2023 as women of all backgrounds raced to try it.
The older I become, the less interested I am in restricting myself and the more I desire to try something different—even with something as minor as hair products. I’ve since tested more products, like Lovery’s Tea Tree Shampoo and Garnier’s Honey Treasures Repairing Conditioner, while also returning to my roots with products like the Ashtae’s Clarifying Shampoo and Mielle’s Pomegranate & Honey Curl Defining Mousse. My hair loved some and rejected others. Such is life; I’m just happy to feel empowered enough to branch out.
Now, I tell everyone: mix and match until you find what works best for you. I swear by the Moroccanoil conditioner, which I probably wouldn’t have given a second look a few years ago, but it’s also second nature to reach for my Camille Rose Clarifying Shampoo when my scalp needs a reset. The model of stores should reflect that as well. There shouldn’t be separate aisles for haircare with “mainstream” and “ethnic” divisions.
“The older I become, the less interested I am in restricting myself.”
Products from different brands deserve to sit side by side—because beauty thrives in variety, and products should be for everyone. And that should be clear. People don’t know what they’ll love until they open themselves up to trying it. And they won’t know it until we stop deciding for them what belongs where—and who belongs to what.
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