Why I Started Clean Beauty for Black Girls

Letter from the Founder: Why I Started Clean Beauty for Black Girls

Looking at the Target sales drop and listening to the Steve Madden discourse, I can't help but think about how it's clear, at least to some capacity, that we as Black women do understand our buying power. Or buyer value. Right? 

So why can’t we translate that to possibility within the beauty industry? Do we not feel we deserve to be centered & well?

I understand how exhausting it is to be constantly bombarded with new studies about how basically everything in our bathroom is going to cause cancer. But that doesn't make the cancer go away. It just makes the silence louder. And the more I sat with that silence, the more I knew I couldn't unsee what I now knew to be true. Based on our buying power, we can force a change. We can push this industry to a new standard. We can demand (with real power) that brands at the very least sell us the stuff that meets the European standard, or California’s? Maybe even parts of Maryland’s, New York’s, and Washington’s? Ya know… because brands are selling there - even with the restrictions!!!!!

I felt like I was missing a connection point. And I asked myself: What am I missing? I kept asking, how did we get here? 

And then I remembered The Odor of Racism.

The harm didn’t start with the product. The product came later. What came first was the belief. The systems built on those beliefs - including social norms.

The belief that we needed fixing. That our bodies, our scent, our skin, our presence, needed to be managed.

We have to take that idea & put it on the table next to what a lot of these chemical ingredients do in our bodies:

“Linked to: cervical cancer, ectopic pregnancy, fibroids, PCOS, endometriosis, infertility”

This is not random. This is not accidental. This is not just bad luck. This is what happens when an entire industry is built on the normalization of harm - of Black women.

Susannah Walker said it: beauty culture is the tools, techniques, and social practices that enforce a dominant, white ideal of feminine beauty. When I read that, I couldn’t stop thinking about what we’ve inherited and how much of that inheritance is toxic. Not just chemically. But psychologically. Culturally. Intergenerationally.

The 1970s had Black is Beautiful. A moment of redefinition. But what happened after that? Where did we go? Because now it feels like we’re back at the same crossroads. Surrounded by brands that want our aesthetic but not our wellness.

The idea that Black people are inherently unclean, that we smell, that our bodies need to be corrected has been intentionally built into policy. Into marketing. Yes, I have receipts. 

“Observations about the odor of Black people have a long history.” “Among beliefs which profess to show that Negroes are inferior…” That mindset made its way into store aisles. Into campaigns. 

For Black people, deodorization and perfuming were protection. They were about survival. Like the use of hair straighteners, it became institutionalized. Normalized. Cultural. And even though we pass it down with care, that care is still carrying harm.

There is a piece of this that is ours to rewrite, as well. It’s up to us to challenge long-established cultural stereotypes about what is clean. It is our responsibility to name the narratives we inherited and rewrite them. 

Clean Beauty for Black Girls is about our right to tell the truth.

Because the truth is: we’ve been lied to. 

And our silence has been bought. Well paid for!

I started this organization because I was tired of knowing and saying nothing. I started it because I want the next generations to inherit a different standard. One that doesn’t call their bodies dangerous. One that doesn’t require them to pay with their health to be considered beautiful.

We cannot change what we are unwilling to confront. And we cannot confront what we are still too scared to name.

Clean Beauty for Black Girls is about naming it all. Loudly. Lovingly. And without apology.

Because we are not the problem. We never were.

—Hannah McCall
Founder, Clean Beauty for Black Girls