Searching for haircare on campus
April 6, 2017
Black hair matters.
Brooke Kimbrough, a member of UI Student Government, is using this idea as motivation in her efforts to see ethnic haircare products lining the shelves of campus stores.
There is limited access to haircare products for ethnic students in the campus area, Kimbrough said, and people of non-European ethnicities typically have hair that is more difficult to manage.
“There’s not a lot of hair products for kinkier textures of hair to be available in Iowa City,” she said. “If you want stuff, you’ve got to go online.”
Being a member of UISG, she said, offered her a platform to make a difference on the matter.
“For me it just seemed like, because I was in University of Iowa Student Government, that I had the kind of platform that I needed to make these things readily accessible for both people who are currently here and for people who will be here after I’m gone,” she said.
Arika Allen, a member of Black Student Union and the organization’s incoming president, said she would see ethnic haircare products being available in campus stores as being beneficial.
“There’s not really many places for women of color or just people of color to buy haircare products, especially here on campus,” she said. “To get access to these ethnic products or products that would be for our hair is very hard, just because we live in Iowa, and people think that there’s not African-Americans or people of color in Iowa, but we’re still here.”
While the response from the black community has been primarily positive, Kimbrough said, she noted there has also been a misunderstanding of what a section offering these products would actually look like in stores.
“Some of them felt like they might be ostracized because of the fact that these things are being introduced, and this has primarily been the kind of store where you get books, clothes, things like that,” she said. Kimbrough envisions the section looking like stores such as JCPenney that also have Sephora or Clinique areas in them, she said, so that it’s not a question of “this is the black people section,” and there would be other different things sold there.
Jill Irvin, the administration-services director of University Housing & Dining, said in an emailed statement to The Daily Iowan that no requests have currently been received for haircare products that are inclusive for African-Americans.
“We are always happy to listen to student suggestions for products in our C-stores,” she said. “… Inventory in our C-stores is reviewed on a consistent basis to make sure we’re serving our consumers, and we invite students to share their feedback. Once we receive a request, we go through a process that includes checking on availability from our supplier and considering the cost in relation to quantity, storage availability, and consumer demand.”
Currently, Kimbrough said, she has communicated with someone who orders the products for the Hawk Shop and she was sent a list of Shea Moisture products to choose from.
“My hopes are that this becomes a long-term sustainable project even after my departure from the university so that we can have an expansive line of black-owned beauty products be available,” she said.
Allen said she hopes Kimbrough’s plans come to fruition and increase visibility of the African-American community at the university.
“I hope it goes through, because seeing the progression of where I was here for the first year on campus, seeing an actual ethnic or people-of-color hair [products] on campus shows that hey, we’re here, don’t forget about us,” she said.
DITV reporter Darliah Adams contributed to this story.