For months we've been adjusting to a new way of working, living, and connecting as COVID-19 and its effects actualize themselves in our lives. And while I've personally forgone my hopes of a traditional #HotGirlSummer, some states have announced plans to re-open despite warnings from officials that the pandemic is "far from over." This, paired with weeks of global unrest in response to yet another wrongful murder of a Black person, has left the most vulnerable communities in a season of constant change.
Black and woman-owned small businesses are among them.
From Madam C.J. Walker to Honeypot's Beatrice Dixon, Black women entrepreneurs have played a vital role in our country's business landscape, spreading their magic across industries and color lines. And although these have proven to be trying times, a renewed focus on these contributions has resulted in a swell of support and heightened interest in seeing Black women-owned entities succeed.
Founders like Yelitsa Jean-Charles of Healthy Roots Dolls can attest to this after a now-viral Tweet translated into sales typically seen over the course of months, in just two days.
The Founder: The Product: pic.twitter.com/o5SNHB368q
— Yelitsa Jean-Charles (@TheYelitsa) June 6, 2020
People are looking for ways to support and reinvest in Black communities to honor their contributions and combat racial inequities that have been hindering their economic and social progression for generations.
I spoke with Black women beauty entrepreneurs who shared more about how they've faced these challenges head-on, and how this surge of support can impact the future of the beauty industry and Black businesses at-large.
-----------------
In late March, millions of Americans began awaiting their $1,200 cut from the CARES Act as a means to withstand rising unemployment and the residual economic onslaught. Similar programs were also put in place to protect small businesses, but not without their own set of hurdles.
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), one of the more popular aid programs, provides low-interest loans to small businesses. But with a lack of concrete guidelines and the exhaustion of initial funds after just 13 days, countless small and minority-owned businesses were left helpless while larger companies received million-dollar bailouts.
"If you target your aid toward a certain type of business, we will come out of this pandemic and we will only have that type of business,'' said Amaya Smith, co-founder of the Brown Beauty Co-op. Smith and fellow beauty entrepreneur Kimberly Smith (no relation) co-founded the Sephora-esque beauty hub in 2018. The boutique celebrates women of color by fostering an inclusive community through its featured products, events, and beauty services.
Even in normal circumstances, Black women disproportionately lack investment capital and other resources needed to maintain their businesses and are often sole proprietorships. Despite being the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs in the country, they receive less than 1% in venture funding, leaving many without the emergency cash reserves sufficient for said survival.
Early numbers also show a record plummet in the number of active business owners from February to April 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
Of those, Black and female-owned small businesses have been impacted the most, experiencing a 41% and 25% decrease in activity, respectively.
"So, how do we help and support businesses who already had challenges with funding and didn't have as much access before?" Amaya continued. "I actually hope that this period of time highlights the disparity in funding and capital between businesses."
Image: Jhavon Kashif, Founder, Nailbed & Bar
For nail salon-owner Jhavon Kashif, the pandemic has presented the second largest threat to the Nailbed & Bar in its young two-year history.
"The first was the federal government shutdown [of 2019] and here we are with COVID-19, so we've been able to weather those storms but it has been a challenge," Jhavon shared.
-----------------
Beauty and the Black Dollar
We're seeing a global outcry against racism and the structural injustices experienced by Black Americans now more than ever. In addition to the impact of coronavirus, Black entrepreneurs find themselves managing their businesses in the crossfire of backlash many brands are receiving in their not-so-genuine support of Black Lives Matter.
Once taboo, corporate leaders across industries have also announced their support for anti-racist efforts and Black Lives.
Campaigns and calls for action like #PullUpOrShutUp, created by Uoma Beauty founder Sharon Chuter, are highlighting the beauty industry's lack of Black representation and pushing for organizational change to address it.
The Brown Beauty Co-op penned an open letter to Sephora in support of the campaign, expressing their disappointment in the brand's lack of accountability for minimal diversity among executives and mistreatment of customers of color.
Image: Kimberly Smith and Amaya Smith, Co-founders, The Brown Beauty Co-op
Up until this pivotal point, many industries have neglected Black consumers, their spending power, and the importance of inclusive marketing and business practices, all while profiting from their influence.
According to a 2018 Nielson report, Black shoppers aren't only spending on products created to appeal to them, but spend considerably more money in the general beauty marketplace in comparison to their counterparts. "Our research shows that Black consumer choices have a 'cool factor' that has created a halo effect, influencing not just consumers of color but the mainstream as well," said Cheryl Grace, Senior Vice President of U.S. Strategic Community Alliances and Consumer Engagement at Nielsen on the report's findings.
The current state of affairs also reveals the economic and racial inequities that have accumulated and hindered the Black community over time. In fact, studies show us that the Black-white wealth gap remains as wide as it was in 1968.
Our dollar matters, and choosing to spend it at Black businesses is an act of economic activism, one that will have implications for generations to come.
The renewed attention of the protests has amplified the harsh duality of Black experiences to the masses, resulting in an outpour of support and celebration of Black art, beauty, history, and of course, Black business.
"My hope that the support of Black business will continue beyond the protest," said Jhavon on the recent wave of support.
-----------------
Black Women Keep it Pushing in Times of Trouble
The beauty industry relies heavily on personal interactions and physical experiences. Shoppers love to try and test before purchasing and entrepreneurs have had to get crafty about everything from marketing to providing its normal services.
"[During the shutdown] foot traffic was impacted, appointments and walk-ins, but it wasn't anything like this," said Jhavon of the pandemic. "Our doors are closed. We cannot accept anyone in our space to render any kind of service, so we really had to focus on marketing in a different way. One thing that we do that has been helpful is that we produce a lot of our products in-house."
In addition to adapting its luxury salon offerings into a Happy Healthy Nails at-Home kit, the salon expanded the promotion of other original nail care products to drive sales through its e-commerce platform.
As with most devastating events, opportunities remain for Black beauty entrepreneurs to be nimble and personally connect with communities in a way that other large retailers, like those called out in the #PullUpOrShutUp campaign, often cannot.
"Although this is a tough period, it's through these tough periods that a lot of businesses are able to come out better on the other side," said Amaya of the Brown Beauty Co-op. The boutique has kept their community of beauty enthusiasts and founders engaged with a series of virtual shopping parties, entrepreneurship social hours, and Shop Brown Saturdays in addition to its fundraising efforts.
"We're really taking advantage of social media [and] different types of virtual meetings so that we can keep our current customer base engaged but also so we can gain new customers through this," she continued. "I think being transparent is the most important."
-----------------
The harnessing of our collective power will play a key role in the survival of Black and women-owned small businesses. While we collectively work toward a more inclusive society, buying Black ensures our voices are heard and communities are supported.
Learn more about the Black beauty brands and Black businesses, you can support here.
Featured image courtesy of The Brown Beauty Co-op
RELATED
Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak