Racial Segregation Runs Rampant in the Hair Care Aisle
“There is a section called ‘ethnic,’ and there is an aisle called ‘beauty,’” notes the resigned voiceover in a powerful new video from SheaMoisture. “Do I feel like I’m beautiful? Is ‘ethnic’ not beautiful?”
The 60-second spot (above), in which various women speak about the rampant racial segregation in beauty aisles, takes that question to task, while its hashtag, #BreakTheWalls, aims to raise awareness and lead to an integrated approach to marketing beauty — with SheaMoisture, found in the straight-up beauty aisle, taking the lead.
Related: Black Women’s Hair Products Are So Toxic, This Organization Is Demanding Change
“For far too long, beauty has been dictated,” Richelieu Dennis — founder and CEO of Sundial Brands, which owns SheaMoisture — says in a separate behind-the-scenes video (below). “We have to continuously evolve and elevate to change that.”
Participants in the campaign’s video include actress Ekeobong Utibe, natural-hair blogger Jessica Lewis of MahoganyCurls, and beauty blogger Alba Garcia of SunKissAlba, all of who share their thoughts on a lifetime of being “conditioned to go to the corner and find our spot where we’ve been placed.”
Related: This Woman Put Flowers in People’s Afros to Celebrate Natural Hair
As Dennis told Essence, “I have often said over the last 20 years that the beauty aisle is the last place in America where segregation is still legal, and separating ‘beauty’ from ‘ethnic’ has only served to further perpetuate narrow standards of what is considered beautiful in our industry and our society — which is why we began leading the efforts to break down those walls.”
So how did the hair market get so racially segregated anyway?
“Industry experts give three reasons for why this obvious problem has yet to be resolved,” said Pepper Miller, a consumer research expert and What’s Black About It co-author, in a 2012 AdAge essay. “1. Manufacturers insist that they are distributing ethnic skin and hair care products where there are high concentrations of African Americans, and although they have budgets for mainstream campaigns, they claim to not have the budgets to support these brands with national ad campaigns.”
She continued, “2. Retailers complain that it is difficult to determine which stores and brands should be given precious shelf space through ‘ethnic’ planograms [a planning model that helps determine product placement]. Really? 3. Ubiquitous beauty-supply stores in black communities rob them of customers by providing more variety of products in combination with low, competitive prices.”
Or, in other words, Miller concluded, “Blah, Blah, Blah.”
As one of the voices in the new video says, the black-white separation is a tough one to swallow. “To be honest, we’ve dealt with it our whole lives,” she says, “to the point of internalizing it.”
Dennis stressed this about #BreakTheWalls: “This movement is about so much more than selling shampoo, or lotion, or cosmetics. We’re advancing a mission and vision to change the social dialogue about how we’re looking at beauty as a society, and how those archaic structures and views are debilitating to the establishment of new and more inclusive ways of viewing beauty — whether in the images we see or in the aisles that divide.”
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