Judian and Kadeian Brown are the owners of Black Girls
Divine Beauty Supply and Salon in Brooklyn. The two women were profiled by the
New York Times recently and discussed breaking into the black hair business when
so much of the industry is dominated by Korean entrepreneurs.
“I go, ‘Look at all the faces on the boxes,’” Judian Brown
told the Times. “Who should be owning these stores?”
Read more of the Brown sisters’ inspiring story:
The Brown sisters’ is one small shop in a
multibillion-dollar industry, centered on something that is both a point of
pride and a political flash point for black women: their hair. But the Browns
are among only a few hundred black owners of the roughly 10,000 stores that
sell hair products like relaxers, curl creams, wigs and hair weaves to black
women, not just in New York but across the country. The vast majority have
Korean-American owners, a phenomenon dating back to the 1970s that has stoked
tensions between black consumers and Korean businesspeople over what some black
people see as one ethnic group profiting from, yet shutting out, another.
A growing awareness of this imbalance has spurred more black
people to hang out their own shingles. The people producing the products have changed,
too: As “going natural” — abandoning artificially smoothed hair in favor of
naturally textured curls and braids — has become more popular and the Internet
has expanded, black entrepreneurs, most of them women, are claiming a bigger
share of the shelves in women’s medicine cabinets.
“We’re aware of where our dollars are going, we’re aware of
the power of our dollars, we’re aware of the cultural significance of the way
that we choose to wear our hair,” said Patrice Grell Yursik, the founder of
Afrobella, a popular natural-hair blog. “There’s been a lot of taking back the
power, and a lot of that is from the Internet.” Read more.
Black Women Find a Growing Business Opportunity: Care for
Their Hair
By VIVIAN YEESEPT. 8, 2014
Photo
Kadeian Brown, left, and Judian Brown own Black Girls Divine
Beauty Supply and Salon, off Church Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Credit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
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Not much seems unusual about Judian and Kadeian Brown’s
storefront in a tidy plaza off Church Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a
neighborhood where every block seems to have its own African hair-braiding
salon.
Posters of African-American women with long, sleek hair fill
the window. Round jars of shea butter belly up to slender boxes of hair dye on
the shelves. Wigs perch on mannequin heads.
What makes Black Girls Divine Beauty Supply and Salon’s
visitors do a double-take is the skin color of the proprietors. “I go, ‘Look at
all the faces on the boxes,’ ” said Judian Brown, recalling other shopkeepers’
and customers’ surprise when they realize she is not an employee, but the
owner. “Who should be owning these stores?”
The Brown sisters’ is one small shop in a
multibillion-dollar industry, centered on something that is both a point of
pride and a political flash point for black women: their hair. But the Browns
are among only a few hundred black owners of the roughly 10,000 stores that
sell hair products like relaxers, curl creams, wigs and hair weaves to black
women, not just in New York but across the country. The vast majority have
Korean-American owners, a phenomenon dating back to the 1970s that has stoked
tensions between black consumers and Korean businesspeople over what some black
people see as one ethnic group profiting from, yet shutting out, another.
