Black products, white profits

African American women spend over a billion dollars every year on hair treatments and products — but according to northern California’s EAST BAY EXPRESS, the dollars they shell out are no longer filling the pockets of fellow African Americans.

While other ethnic groups have grown savvy about the profits to be made in the black hair-care industry, African Americans have let slip their hold on it. Koreans now run at least 60 percent of the nation’s beauty supply stores that cater to black customers, and white-owned manufacturing companies control more than half the market for black hair-care products.