Everyone knows somebody scraping the underside of a jar of grease or squeezing the final drop from a product bottle. However that mindset—of stretching each drop—can truly stunt the expansion of the very companies we declare to assist. It leaves Black-owned magnificence manufacturers chasing retail offers as an alternative of constructing their very own distribution energy. With DEI packages rolling again, tariffs erasing income, and extra people questioning who actually values the Black greenback, this issues now greater than ever.
Trichologist and sweetness retail skilled Rodney Barnett drove this level residence in the course of the IBS Powerhouse Pavilion panel, “Defining the Legacy of Black Magnificence.” Chatting with a room stuffed with magnificence professionals, Barnett didn’t maintain again.
“Why will we even want a retailer?” he requested. “Google what number of Black hairdressers and barbers there are in the USA.”
ADVERTISEMENT
A fast search on Information USA exhibits that Black people made up 24.1% of the barber workforce and 11.1% of the hairstylist/cosmetologist workforce in 2022. And get this—about 33% of salon and spa companies are Black- or African American-owned.
“In the event that they had been loyal to the producer, we wouldn’t want a retailer in any respect. Pooling our cash collectively—that’s probably the greatest methods you’ll be able to ever take into consideration.”
Barnett mentioned he usually hears folks say they need to assist Black manufacturers however really feel like they’ll’t compete with retail costs. However there’s a motive many find yourself on cabinets.
“You recognize why they went and put it into retail shops?” he requested. “Since you guys need to purchase one or two of one thing each two or three months. How can anyone keep in enterprise that manner? You then need any individual to drive all the way in which throughout city to carry one bottle of shampoo to you or one product. None of us can keep in enterprise if we operated like that. What in case your purchasers got here to you each three or 4 days? How lengthy might you keep in enterprise?”
ADVERTISEMENT
He additionally defined how retailers don’t purchase just some bottles — they purchase in bulk.
“We’ve sufficient cosmetologists and barbers in the USA that if we had been simply loyal—the phrase is loyalty—and everyone mentioned, ‘I’m going to purchase a dozen of this each month,’ and you are taking the thousands and thousands of cosmetologists and barbers that make that dedication, you wouldn’t be speaking about retail house or watermarks or any of those others. That’s how you’d be capable of hold the manufacturers going.”
Barnett wasn’t simply throwing out hypotheticals—he was laying out an actual blueprint. He additionally addressed the shift in client training. He recalled how salons as soon as served as hubs of data, introducing purchasers to merchandise that labored for his or her particular wants. Right this moment, he famous, customers usually discover themselves alone in retailer aisles, reaching for something labeled “pure” or “for Black hair.”
He identified that 80% of Black-owned salons aren’t retailing merchandise in any respect—a missed alternative not only for income, however for affect. If extra salons had been retailing and educating, purchasers would perceive what they had been shopping for and why, and Black manufacturers would have a stronger probability at long-term sustainability.
ADVERTISEMENT
Having labored with legacy manufacturers like Dudley Merchandise and Professional-Line, Barnett is aware of firsthand what the Black magnificence trade was constructed on: loyalty, group, and intentional circulation of the Black greenback. It’s what fueled the trade’s early development—and it’s what might gasoline its future, if the group chooses to maneuver with intention once more.
As a result of on the finish of the day, as Barnett reminded everybody, “We didn’t begin with a retailer. And we didn’t want one then both.”
