The Black Beauty Business Model Retailers Hope You’ll Forget

We all know someone scraping the bottom of a jar of grease or squeezing the last drop from a product bottle. But that mindset—of stretching every drop—can actually stunt the growth of the very businesses we claim to support. It leaves Black-owned beauty brands chasing retail deals instead of building their own distribution power. With DEI programs rolling back, tariffs erasing profits, and more folks questioning who really values the Black dollar, this matters now more than ever.

Trichologist and beauty retail expert Rodney Barnett drove this point home during the IBS Powerhouse Pavilion panel, “Defining the Legacy of Black Beauty.” Speaking to a room full of beauty professionals, Barnett didn’t hold back.

“Why do we even need a retailer?” he asked. “Google how many Black hairdressers and barbers there are in the United States.”

A quick search on Data USA shows that Black individuals 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 businesses are Black- or African American-owned.

“If they were loyal to the manufacturer, we wouldn’t need a retailer at all. Pooling our money together—that’s one of the best ways you can ever think about.”

Barnett said he often hears people say they want to support Black brands but feel like they can’t compete with retail prices. But there’s a reason many end up on shelves.

“You know why they went and put it into retail stores?” he asked. “Because you guys want to buy one or two of something every two or three months. How can anybody stay in business that way? Then you want somebody to drive all the way across town to bring one bottle of shampoo to you or one product. None of us can stay in business if we operated like that. What if your clients came to you every three or four days? How long could you stay in business?”

He also explained how retailers don’t buy just a few bottles — they buy in bulk.

“We have enough cosmetologists and barbers in the United States that if we were just loyal—the word is loyalty—and everybody said, ‘I’m going to buy a dozen of this every month,’ and you take the millions of cosmetologists and barbers that make that commitment, you wouldn’t be talking about retail space or watermarks or any of these others. That’s how you would be able to keep the brands going.”

Barnett wasn’t just throwing out hypotheticals—he was laying out a real blueprint. He also addressed the shift in consumer education. He recalled how salons once served as hubs of knowledge, introducing clients to products that worked for their specific needs. Today, he noted, consumers often find themselves alone in store aisles, reaching for anything labeled “natural” or “for Black hair.”

He pointed out that 80% of Black-owned salons aren’t retailing products at all—a missed opportunity not just for revenue, but for influence. If more salons were retailing and educating, clients would understand what they were buying and why, and Black brands would have a stronger chance at long-term sustainability.

Having worked with legacy brands like Dudley Products and Pro-Line, Barnett knows firsthand what the Black beauty industry was built on: loyalty, community, and intentional circulation of the Black dollar. It’s what fueled the industry’s early growth—and it’s what could fuel its future, if the community chooses to move with intention again.

Because at the end of the day, as Barnett reminded everyone, “We didn’t start with a retailer. And we didn’t need one then either.”