Few things are more inspiring for me than seeing Black women take up space in the world. Black girl culture is creative, vibrant, unique, and aspirational to those who are not a part of it. It makes perfect sense that Black-owned beauty brands are thriving. I love my Ami Colé lip gloss, Topicals body serum, Nola Skin Essentials, and Mielle Organics deep conditioner. Still, as with all forms of consumption, I try to be mindful of my purchases, regardless of who sells them. In the early days of natural hair care blogs and forums, the term "Product Junkie" was coined to describe people who bought more hair care products than they could realistically use. Part of what fuels people to be Product Junkies is the urge to experiment with a new brand or product to see if it's better than what they already have. Nevermind, if you had products that are working perfectly fine, decades of products that work for your hair type sequestered to a scant "ethnic hair care" section in stores, and centuries of having your natural hair texture denigrated, is more than enough reason to keep feeding that insatiable beast that tells you, maybe there is something even better to use on your locs. I had a brief stint as a Product Junkie until I realized how much money I was wasting on trying to constantly improve my type 4 hair which, no matter what the advertisement says, is always going to be naturally dry and kinky. These days, I use every tube and bottle of hair or skin care products until the last drop, and I donate, recycle, and thrift clothing. These habits are influenced by getting to the bottom of why I make certain purchases, beyond just wanting to try them out, and how my purchases impact the environment.
Navigating a world that constantly tries to get you to buy something can be exhausting at times. Having a base-level understanding of the sociological and environmental ramifications of hyperconsumerism compounds my consumer fatigue. All of this makes getting excited about yet another celebrity product quite difficult for me, even if a highly celebrated Black woman is selling it. Most people do not care about where or to whom their money is going, and there is an argument that nearly everything we buy is going to be tied to some problematic person or business entity. But when Black people become figureheads for people and corporations who cause harm to marginalized communities, and it’s packaged as empowerment, it’s time for us to reassess who we are heralding and why.
When Rihanna announced her new hair care line, unsurprisingly named Fenty Hair, I narrowed my eyes and said, "Hmmmm". While some people pondered whether it would be wigs or hair care products, I pondered how my perception of her intentions as a businesswoman had shifted and when I started to notice it. I have given Rihanna my money in the past. A Fenty concealer that is honestly the closest match I've ever gotten to my skin tone, one of my favorite cream blushes, and an okay face mask. I purchased from her in the name of supporting Black women, but when that Black woman refuses to be accountable for the ways she contributes to broader issues that impact the people who are bankrolling her enterprises, it is no longer support, it is enablement.
I have long defended Rihanna's choice to go on what feels like a permanent hiatus from music to expand her business ventures. The way capitalism positions music as a product to consume encourages fans to regard it as something they need more and more of, as if the work they've already put out is too old or irrelevant to continue consuming. I was also supportive of her choice because initially, it seemed like she was creating with the intention to expand and disrupt the beauty and fashion industry, which had historically shut out Black women. When she introduced Fenty Beauty to the world, it was the first makeup line with more expansive offerings for dark skin tones and undertones for people of all shades. The industry responded by expanding makeup shades, although much work still needs to be done in this area. She also became the first Black woman to head an LVMH fashion house with her now-defunct luxury ready-to-wear line FENTY. She even flipped The Victoria's Secret show fashion show concept on its head by featuring people of all body types and genders performing and walking the runway during her Savage x Fenty shows. She was establishing herself as a visionary, identifying holes in the industry and filling them by meeting the needs of marginalized consumers with massive buying power. However, seven years after the launch of the brands that made her a billionaire, the intentionality behind her business moves has shifted more towards a mentality of making money just for the sake of more money, like her mentor, Jay-Z. On Jay-Z's 2013 album Magna Carta Holy Grail, he manifested this ascent on the "Nickels and Dimes."
And just for clarity, my presence is charity
My flow is a gift, philanthropist
Everybody 'round me rich, or will be
Baby boy I promise you this, or kill me
These lines reinforce a belief many Black capitalists hold that by simply making money, being representation, and using their work to influence people, they've done their part in helping make the world a better place. Jay-Z has talked in depth about how he advises the people in his circle on their business moves. He is a man who has long conflated Black capitalism with Black liberation and even has gone as far as to say being called a capitalist is a slur. He is also a man who has prided himself on discovering Rihanna and bolstering her career, extending beyond the music she had long abandoned. If we were to believe the best about Shawn Carter (which, for the record, I don't) and say that he is just a brother looking out for a young woman in the industry, some might say there is a valid reason for him to encourage Rihanna to acquire more wealth.
If you are a true Rihanna fan, you will remember her 2015 song "Bitch Better Have My Money." The music video was co-directed by Rihanna and inspired by Kill Bill and her real-life experience of having an accountant mismanage her funds, losing her an estimated $9M after her Last Girl on Earth Tour in 2009. She reportedly only had $2M in the bank at the end of 2009, which is a lot of money to the average person, but when you're someone who has multiple people on the payroll and appearances to keep up, not to mention an immigrant, I can imagine it is a scary thing to navigate. So, it isn't surprising that after filing a lawsuit against her former accountants that finally settled in 2014 after three years of being in court, she would find other ways to generate revenue by starting new businesses. In 2021, Forbes announced that Rihanna was officially a billionaire, making her the youngest self-made billionaire in America and among the world's top 5 richest Black women. With her recent expansion of Fenty Beauty across Asia and the newly released Fenty Hair care line, she isn't slowing down any time soon.
Rethinking Excellence
Which brings me back to why I was narrowing my eyes and saying "hmmm" when I saw the Fenty Hair announcement. Makeup, skincare, lingerie, and fashion make sense as Rihanna products because her persona is centered on her beauty, sex appeal, and personal style, but something about hair care feels a little off. Sure, Rihanna is known for innovating a lot of different hairstyles with her playful use of color and trendsetting haircuts. I can see why people automatically assumed she's releasing a wig line since she primarily wears wigs and other protective styles, and we've never seen her natural hair1. Yet, the launch of her hair care line coincided with showing what her natural coils look like for the first time, which automatically drew comparisons to Beyoncé showing her natural hair in an Instagram post for her hair care line Cécred. And while I hold many of the same critiques of Beyoncé's capitalistic choices as I do Rihanna’s, as a child raised on the “Bills, Bills, Bills” video, Cécred makes a bit more sense, especially with Beyoncé’s mother, Ms. Tina, a former hairstylist and salon owner, as co-founder. The natural hair space is a saturated market, and with new celebrity hair care brands popping up every day, the move isn't exactly as innovative as previous Fenty ventures appeared to be. Some people will argue that there is space for everyone to start a hair care business, and while that may be true, there is not space for most consumers to continue buying from their ultra-wealthy faves in this economy. It makes me question how often Rihanna and people who occupy similar spaces consider how they are meeting their consumer’s needs. With more calls for brands to prioritize their social impact, the attempts to brand a Black woman billionaire as a form of progress rings hollow.
By and large, celebrity philanthropy is almost always tied to writing a check. On a rare occasion, you might hear about them doing volunteer work or appearing at a mission they are supporting, but rarely do you hear them speak at length about the causes they are supporting and their impact. Some may argue that this is because saying how you are helping others lacks humility, and that is a valid perspective, but if there are issues in the world so dire that they need millions of dollars of donations, wouldn't it be helpful to use your platform to speak about it? The Fenty brand's primary philanthropic effort is to fund the Clara Lionel Foundation, Rihanna's non-profit named after her grandparents, which was founded to address climate justice issues in The Caribbean. Rihanna also funds the Clara Lionel Foundation by hosting The Diamond Ball, a black-tie event that honored Shaun King (a well-documented grifter), among others, in previous years.
In reviewing The Clara Lionel Foundation's 10-year impact report, there are many admirable but vague initiatives. Fortifying health clinics, helping with emergency preparedness, and investing in education in the Caribbean are among the most notable initiatives. A lot of work outlined in the timeline is check-writing. $12M to end racial injustice, $36M for COVID relief efforts, and $200M for education. All sound incredible, but the impact of these initiatives is unknown. The Clara Lionel Foundation currently has a 97% rating on Charity Navigator. However, the rating is only for Accountability and Finance, which assesses the "financial health (financial efficiency, sustainability, and trustworthiness) and its commitment to governance practices and policies." The foundation has not been scored on Impact and Measurement (the direct impact of a charity's program relative to operating costs) or Culture & Community (the connectedness to the community it serves). It is not at all surprising that the financial aspects of the work have taken precedence over impact, culture, and community.
I'm not trying to shit on the work this foundation is doing, I think billionaires have a social responsibility to put their wealth into places that need it, but this form of giving back allows celebrities to use their money as a way to underutilize their influence. This is, after all, a woman who has refused to end her collaboration with Puma who has been on the BDS list for supporting Israel, refused to listen to Black women when we asked her not to honor Shauna King at the Diamond Ball, tweeted "#FreePalestine" then deleted it, whose brand Savage X Fenty has had worse ethical practices scores than Shein and whose beauty brand is partially owned by a fashion conglomerate run by a man who has invested millions in Israeli tech. This is part of why we say Black capitalism is not Black liberation because if your freedom is tied to appeasing gatekeepers who harm the communities you come from, how free are you, really? For these reasons, I have just a smidgen of empathy for Rihanna because she is, after all, a Black woman from the Caribbean, living out the American Dream, which was likely sold to her via propaganda like it was to all immigrants. Understanding her context helps me understand her motivations, but this understanding does not absolve her from needing to interrogate the way she can use her power and influence in more socially conscious ways.
To most fans and consumers, giving money is more than enough. Artists and business people aren't activists, at least not in the way we have traditionally viewed the role of activism. This line of thinking is flawed because it doesn't acknowledge the various roles we all play in pushing change forward, nor does it challenge us to use our imagination to see how we can make an impact in our own unique ways. I want to use another Black woman-owned beauty brand as an example of how brands can engage with community building in a way that meets us in the moment.
Earlier, I mentioned Topicals, a Black-owned brand that, like Fenty, is sold in Sephora in the US, UK, and Canada. Their brand ethos centers on creating products that allow consumers to feel good about their skin and advocating for mental health. The brand's co-founder, Olamide Ayomikun Olowe, was named the youngest Black woman to secure $10M in venture capital funding. This is no small accomplishment, considering it's estimated that Black women represent just .41% of VC-backed founders (yes, you read that right, less than 1%). Olowe also created Cost of Doing Business, which she described on her Instagram account in a caption as "an open source playbook with the goal of creating a new generation of thinkers who solve big problems for the communities that need it most and create generational wealth while doing so. Capitalism can't save us, but community can."
I first noticed Topicals shifting the role that brands have in changing our relationship with consumerism when they were sold out of lip gloss and redirected their customers to other Black-owned beauty brands to purchase from. I loved hearing Community Organizer and Activist Evelynn Escobar talk about how Topicals has donated to her non-profit Hike Clerb, and allowed a Palestinian activist to use their social media channels to talk about what has been happening in Gaza. Knowing that this is a brand that's not interested in making money just for the sake of it, that makes quality products, and is also incredibly thoughtful about how they show up in the world makes purchasing from them a more meaningful experience. Topicals has raised $14M, which is small potatoes for a brand like Fenty Beauty worth $2.8B, whose staggering valuation comes at an equally staggering moral cost in our current sociopolitical climate.
I hesitated to write about this because I don't want to single Rihanna out, and as I said in the beginning, I love seeing Black women take up space in the world. Rihanna, in particular, is a fun person to watch from afar. She is funny, blunt, and charismatic. She is the kind of person who will give cash to someone on the street. She will kiki with you on the red carpet like she is your best friend. Overall, she seems like a good time, and it doesn't hurt that she's incredibly stylish, has a deep catalog of bops, and is stunning. Her public persona manages to position her as someone who is both aspirational and down-to-earth. She doesn't give off the feeling of an ultra-wealthy celebrity peering down at us from a glass tower in the sky, but she absolutely is. So now, the question is, what will it take for her to leave that tower to not just appear but actually be down to earth with the rest of us?
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With love,
LaChelle
When I say natural, I don't mean her real hair; I mean her hair in its natural texture.
"an open source playbook with the goal of creating a new generation of thinkers who solve big problems for the communities that need it most and create generational wealth while doing so. Capitalism can't save us, but community can." I knew Topicals was a truly ethical brand from the girlie on Instagram and TikTok that posts about BDS safe beauty brands, but I didn't know they were this based!!!! I am not a beauty girlie at all, but I have a lot of people around me that are, and I like to let them know if a brand is sketchy, but I am truly going to look more into Topicals, I am on a hunt for an SPF so, might look if they have that!
Regarding charities and billionaires, I have a huge issue about that because basically what they are doing is philantrocapitalism, meaning an illusion that they're doing good by giving money away but that money is 1. a tax writeoff and 2. if they own foundations or charities, the money is going back into their pocket! Plus, after years of digging a little bit into the charity industry, I realised that charities are a way to justify the existence of billionaires and maintain the status quo, so I have big issues with philantrocapitalism and its BTS, but I'm probably biased because I truly despise billionaires!
Thanks for writing this article, truly loved it! :D