The lab where one company works to understand black women’s hair

On a recent spring afternoon, Marcella Roberts and Brooke Council sat in a salon chatting about how much they loved their hair. The two black women discussed a new cream they had been using to style and moisturize their curly hairstyles.

“It works wonders,” said Ms. Roberts, whose day job outside as a meter reader can quickly dry out her curls. “It will take a few days.”

“Even my colleague commented on how soft my hair was,” Ms Council added.

The cream didn’t leave their scalps with the distracting little flakes that other products sometimes did, the women said. And while they agreed that the cream had a pungent tropical scent when first applied, “it calmed down and it was a pleasant smell” as the day went on, Ms Council said.

And that first smell hadn’t stopped Ms. Roberts from slathering the cream on her scalp. “A little bit goes a long way,” she said. “But I just wanted to try. I said, ‘Well, it’s a test center.’”

The test center she was referring to was the salon itself, run by Unilever, one of the largest consumer goods conglomerates in the world and the owner of brands like Dove, Vaseline and SheaMoisture. The product the women were reviewing was one of the company’s newest products, and Unilever scientists and stylists listened in and took notes on their phones as they gave their opinions.

The salon – and the insights of the people who test products there – is one way Unilever is trying to tap into the long underappreciated but increasingly important black hair care market. Black consumers are a group in which beauty companies have been underinvested or outright ignored for generations. But with people of color making up a growing percentage of the U.S. population, it’s become a business imperative for beauty companies to understand the millions of consumers with textured hair.

If Unilever gets this right, the company could get a bigger share of the $1.8 billion black consumers in the United States spend annually on hair products. Black women tend to usage twice as many products for their hair care and styling routines as white women. And despite this demand, black consumers are three times more likely than other racial groups to say they are dissatisfied with their hair and skin care options, according to a McKinsey study. report released last year.

“I am amazed at the work that has been done so far, as well as the work we still have to do,” said Peter Schrooyen, who oversees Unilever’s research and development for a dozen beauty brands in North America. “We have a great understanding of dark-skinned people from India, from Africa, but there’s relatively little information we have about the African Americans, the black and brown people, and Hispanic people from North America.”

Each week, Unilever brings about 50 men and women to its salon, which it calls the Polycultural Center of Excellence. More than half of the participants are people of color.

They are not told the name of the product being tested, or what the company thinks it should be used for. Instead, executives watch how testers interact with the product because they could reveal a use for it that hadn’t been considered before.

“It really fills the gaps in understanding biology or what we thought we understood after one or two studies,” said Tiffany Yizar, the director of Unilever’s multicultural technical beauty center in North America.

Across the street from the salon, Unilever has a research and development lab where it tests ingredients and formulas designed for curly hair. At the salon, the company is trying to figure out what encourages people to buy more of their shampoos, conditioners, and lotions from stores like Target, CVS, and Sally Beauty. (Unilever occasionally recruits customers in the aisles of these stores to participate in testing.) Products are sometimes sent back to the lab for more work once the company has gathered feedback from those in the salon.

Between the two Unilever buildings, a team of some 400 scientists, data analysts and stylists study human biology and consumer feedback to create products that can take up to 18 months to reach the shelves. The scientists – who, Mr. Schrooyen noted, come from 40 countries – do not work for a specific brand. Instead, they are trying to identify ingredients and develop “blockbuster technologies” that can be applied in Unilever’s product lines, which also include Ax and Sunsilk, a hair care brand.

Unilever’s recent changes include upgrading the formula of petroleum jelly lotions to add 88 percent more moisture, the company said, and rolling out a Dove line of detangling conditioners and recovery masks infused with honey, jojoba, aloe and coconut oil . In 2020, Unilever introduced Mele, a skincare line of gels, serums and sunscreen made for people of color and the biological makeup of their melanized skin. SheaMoisture has started selling a scalp care line targeting dandruff, which is a major concern for black women according to a 2022 Euromonitor study.

Unilever faces increasing competition from e-commerce start-ups that have gained a loyal following on social media, and both Unilever and its fellow giant Procter & Gamble have adopted some of these emerging brands. But putting money into its own research and development will help Unilever understand the underlying science of textured hair, said Jennifer Van Wyk, a former researcher at TRI Princeton, which conducts cosmetic science research funded by Unilever and other companies.

“Once you have that insight, it can be very helpful to then innovate and find these solutions to reduce the problems that are there or the benefits that people want,” says Ms. Van Wyk, who leads the Textured Hair Project of ran the non-profit organization.

Unilever has been running its consumer testing center for five years. But in the wake of the 2020 race justice protests, the company realized it could do more. In 2021, executives promised to double funding by this year to research and create products for melanin-rich skin and textured hair.

Over the years, several of Unilever’s brands have faced criticism for the way they have treated women of color in their marketing. An ad for Dove soap in 2017 showed a black woman taking off her skin colored shirt to reveal a white woman in a white shirt. The ad played on a racist trope that black people are dirty. Following an outcry on social media, Dove apologized and said it was “deeply sorry” for “the offense it has caused”.

For black and brown consumers, purchasing decisions are not just about buying products scientifically tailored to their skin and hair type. It’s also about feeling like a big company like Unilever is trying to gain trust by asking for their feedback and representing them fully.

Understanding those customers is one of Ms. Yizar’s most important duties at the company. She advises Unilever on which products could and should be on the market until 2026. Ms. Yizar, 37, is a trained chemical engineer who went to Brown University, she said, because it placed her in a liberal arts environment while studying the hard science of chemical and biochemical engineering.

“Beauty is a space where you have a really long aisle,” says Ms. Yizar, who is Afro-Latina and wears her hair in locs. “I grew up in a time when only a limited part of the aisle was for me. So I think we owe our consumers a diversity of options.”

On the day of the focus groups, she watched Ayanna and Melissa Williams, mother and daughter, apply a white cream to their curly hair after stylists washed it. As the two rub the cream through their damp hair, Ms. Yizar bombarded them with questions about how they learn about new products (via YouTube, said Melissa, 22) and what they notice when they browse a store (bottles that list castor oil as an ingredient ).

The elderly Mrs. Williams said she often bought products that smelled good, and it was even better if the smell of the product lingered in her hair after she cooked her traditional Caribbean food. The cream she was testing in her hair that day smelled like a drink you’d drink on the beach, she said, assuming it had hints of peach and coconut.

But price is also a crucial factor. “As a mother, I always try to find a deal for me,” says Ms Williams, 41, who works at a primary school.

Winning a customer with textured hair doesn’t mean the same product will work for the next customer with naturally curly hair.

“The biggest challenge is frankly having too much reach,” said Courtney Rominiyi, an analyst at Mintel who researches the hair care industry. “I think one of the biggest pitfalls brands have had is trying to attract every black consumer.”

Ms. Yizar acknowledged that Unilever needs to get very nuanced and detailed if it hopes to inspire customer loyalty among a large number of people of color. And she noted that the work would never really stop.

Unilever, for example, has recently focused more on black consumers, but still has a lot of work to do to understand the habits and needs of Latino buyers. Ms. Yizar said it could take a decade for the company to gain an understanding of that diverse group of consumers.

“Once we do that,” she said, “there will definitely be another group.”