Glossy

SHEAMOISTURE WANTS TO RECLAIM THE FEMALE BEAUTY NARRATIVE.

On Monday, SheaMoisture launched a new ongoing omnichannel campaign called It Comes Naturally, which seeks to celebrate Black culture and heritage. It Comes Naturally includes six female artists who created animations, illustrations, textiles and videos, among other assets that reference the history of Black beauty and natural hair. The campaign is SheaMoisture’s largest in approximately five years, said Cara Sabin, SheaMoisture CEO.

It will be promoted across SheaMoisture’s e-commerce and social channels, in-store through Walmart, CVS, Target and Walgreens, and across linear and OTT television ads on BET, OWN Roku and Vevo, among others. Coinciding with It Comes Naturally is also an expansion of SheaMoisture’s existing Community Commerce program, which was formalized in 2014 as a corporate social responsibility initiative that supports female entrepreneurs in places like Ghana.

Previously, Community Commerce was funded by an undisclosed percentage of limited edition product sales, but that’s now being permanently extended to every product sale.

“The primary goal of the campaign is not only to inspire our consumer, but also to really put the power back into the hands of Black women,” said Sabin. “Oftentimes, Black women don’t feel seen or heard, and we don’t feel that our dollars matter or that our voice matters. We really wanted this to be a celebration of Black women and [to be seen as] a platform for us to tell our stories of ourselves.”

The cultural climate in which SheaMoisture is launching It Comes Naturally is one where there is a public reckoning around the disenfranchisement of BIPOC communities. Within the beauty industry specifically, brands are confronting the lack of diversity in their employee and executive structures, the merchandising of skin-lightening products and the way marketing and communications have minimized or ignored BIPOC customers.

What this campaign seeks to do, in part, is reclaim ownership for Black women’s participation in the cultural and beauty industry’s evolution.

“When you think about Black beauty, it’s not just in the past; there is legacy and heritage passed down from generation to generation. But what makes it at the forefront [of our campaign] is that it always has a nod to the future, as well,” said Sabin. “Oftentimes, we feel that that Black women are leading the way in beauty and culture. That tension of the past, the present and the future is what we really tried to highlight with this campaign.”