Atlanta – Before the oppressive heat of summer descends in Atlanta, the therapist Brittane Sims generally receives his thick and curly hair braided in a room to preserve his healthy hair.
But it is more expensive this year. So he will only pay for his teenage daughter and son to get their summer hairstyles. Not having braided hair “creates more problems for everything,” said Sims, who tells among the dozens of millions of women who regularly spend in the black hair care industry.
Now, he said, he has to “go home and discover what I’m going to do with my hair in the morning, after I went to the gym and is getting to sweat and frizz.”
President Donald Trump’s tariffs are raising the prices of products that many black women consider that essential buyers and stylists and squeezing even more as they deal with inflation and higher rentals. Much of the braided synthetic hair, human hair for extensions, wigs and fabrics, hairstyle tools, gel braided and other products import or have a Chinese packaging, which was subject to a combined rate of 145% in April. India is also an important global source of human hair.
Many black women have favorable hair and styles in the workplace that require careful attention, and can spend hundreds of dollars in rooms every month on extensions, fabrics, wigs and braids. Associated Press spoke with several experts in the black hair industry, owners of beauty supplies and wholesale companies, as well as almost two dozen stylists and black braids, some of which may have to increase prices even as businesses have slowed.
On Thursday, a Federal Court of Appeals restored most Trump’s tariffs on imported goods after they were blocked the day before for a panel of three judges of the United States International Trade Courts.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed to abandon the 145% tax on the assets imported from China to 30%, while the two economic superpowers negotiate new commercial agreements. Imports from most other countries face 10%basal tariff rates.
Anyway, the coming months “are already filmed” for many articles, said Marty Parker, business professor at the University of Georgia and supply chain expert who worked in the hair care industry. The costs that companies have been facing in the ports are reaching consumers, supplies shortage is worse, and it is not clear what will happen if negotiations break.
“Prices rise very fast and lower very slow,” Parker said.
Some stylists said they are seeing fewer customers because prices are climbing practically for everything.
Atlanta stylists are paying more for China’s hair. The stylist of Atlanta, Yana Ellis, who also sells products such as wigs, paid $ 245 additional in shipping for 52 hair packages in March compared to 40 packages in December. Aaniyah Butler said his shipping costs for human hair doubled from February to May. And Dajiah Blackshear found in early May that a beauty supplies store increased the cost of the type of hair it has used for years for $ 100.
The store owner said he could stop selling that hair brand because he went up a lot. Similarly, some wholesale hair have seen higher costs or wait for them in the coming weeks. Even the typical cost of $ 6 to $ 10 of a synthetic hair package has been reduced.
Blackshear does not want customers to bring hair because he likes to examine quality. But if the expenses continue to increase, it may have to increase their prices.
“It will be extremely difficult,” he said, especially for clients that “they have to make those difficult decisions, among ‘Do I make my hair or pay my invoices?”
Janice Lowe, who runs 5 Starr Salon in a low -income neighborhood southeast of Atlanta, has begun to ask customers to bring the hair and cannot buy certain products.
“I’m staying behind my obligations,” he said.
The consultants vary on the amount of prices that will increase, when they will rise and how much time, and the total damage for stylists and consumers could be months away.
The global black hair care industry was worth approximately $ 3.2 billion in 2023, according to market.usAnd black women spend six times more in hair care than other ethnicities.
Estylists often buy some professional products more difficult to obtain door -to -door from distributors that buy from wholesale companies or larger distributors that buy directly from other countries.
Lowe has seen some of its distributors completely disappear, which makes it more difficult to obtain professional lines, such as the essential design elements of the professional -owned black -haired brand, manufactured in Atlanta in McBride Research Laboratories.
Design Essentials is trying to delay large price increases up to 2026 or 2027, and can resort to dismissals or pause promotions to save money, said President Cornell McBride Jr. Most packaging plastics come from China, but ingredients can come from many places.
“Nobody wants to put it to the consumer, but the person who pays is the consumer at the end,” said McBride Jr.
Hawa Keita and her mother generally charge customers between $ 160 and $ 250 for braid in her store, the African hair braided of Eve in College Park to the southwest of Atlanta. Keita is determined to take losses because her clients “cannot pay Atlanta prices,” Keita said.
The cost of a box of 100 braid packages from China increased for the first time in two years, from $ 250 to $ 300, Keita said. They order weekly, often multiple boxes. Some companies say that prices will soon increase or run out of stock.
Making customers happy is, ultimately, which will keep the business afloat, Keita said. She smiled as she told the train of a young woman for her birthday with a style she suggested.
“When we finished, she gave me the biggest hug, and I was shouting and shouting here because she really loved her hair,” Keita said.
For many black Americans, especially women, providing hair care also means facing unfavorable beauty standards. The Law professor at Georgia State University, Tanya Washington, said recent discoveries about Dangerous chemicals In synthetic hair and hair straightening products have caused conversations among black women looking for hairstyles that do not require so many imported products.
But hugging natural hairstyles can be discouraging for women like those who are the ones who will soon be lawyers and employees that Washington advises that they face pressure to straighten their hair.
“That puts all those who do not have organically and naturally derived straight hair at a disadvantage in these spaces,” he said. “I think that a definition of professionalism that favors a phenotype, the European phenotype, over all others, is inappropriate.”
Long -data revenue disparities among black and white women can also make the highest hair care prices unsustainable. According to the United States Census, as of 2023, the average family income in Atlanta is $ 131,319 for white homes and $ 47,937 for black homes.
It is a problem of inequality that professional stylists know throughout the country.
The stylist Mitzi Mitchell, owner of Pic One’s beauty services in Pennsylvania, said it has supplied certain products and tools for another year in advance of price increases.
She wants to avoid “smuggling” products, which are manufactured illegally and, often, are not so safe, but became much more frequent in the market during economic recessions.
“I am really aware of my black minority customers because we do much less than other nationalities,” said Mitchell, who is black. “I try to keep prices low so that we can continue having the same services, but I know I will have to increase it.”
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Kramon is a member of Associated Press’s body/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America It is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local writing rooms to inform about undercover issues. Follow Kramon in X: @Charlottekramon.
