Trump's tariffs are leaving Black beauty businesses in peril

The salon, in Smyrna, Georgia, houses two stylists and offers dozens of services that range from $50 natural hairstyles to $745 tape-in weave extensions.

Her most popular services are $254 sew-ins, where human hair extensions are woven into braids, and $125 quick weaves, where human or synthetic hair is styled and then glued to a stocking cap.

But the prices of hair extensions and hair glues used to create wigs and weaves have gone up exponentially after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of different tariffs on China and Vietnam, where the majority of Black beauty products are made.

The price of a package of hair imported from Vietnam has gone up to $290 from $190 since May. A bottle of hair glue, imported from China, has gone up from $8 a bottle to $14.99 at her local beauty supply store.

“We’re being impacted at every level,” Blackshear-Calloway said. “I’m either having to eat that cost or pass that expense along to my clients, which affects their budgets and their pockets as well.”

To avoid passing on rising costs, Blackshear-Calloway is asking her clients to bring their own hair to their appointments. Now her salon is offering a quick weave service without hair for $140, but with hair the price is $400, according to her booking website.

She's also struggling to get products since her wholesaler is delaying shipments as tariff rates fluctuate.

Kadidja Dosso, 30, owner of Dosso Beauty, which sells hypoallergenic braiding hair, as well as The Dosso Hair Salon in Philadelphia, has also faced delayed shipments on imports from China.

She waited over a month to get $50,000 worth of China-made braiding hair via air freight at John F. Kennedy Airport in June, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced 145% tariffs on the country over confusion over what tariff should apply.

"We have to provide more specifics of the products - exact materials, the product use - for it to clear customs," Dosso said. "Part of the issue was that the same language that we've been using for years wasn't descriptive enough."

She wants to avoid raising prices on her $13 packets of hair which customers typically buy at least five at a time to complete one hairstyle.

HIGHER COSTS

Tariffs are disproportionately impacting Black business owners like Blackshear-Calloway and Dosso, said Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“Many Black entrepreneurs started off with less wealth,” Perry said. He said that the wealth gap puts Black entrepreneurs, especially those in low-margin businesses like consumer goods or hair care services, into precarious financial positions as tariffs eat into their bottom lines.

Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain and operations management at Georgia State University, said rising costs due to tariffs are "like a tax that you're imposing on business."

“In some cases, it could be borne by the foreign manufacturer, but in most cases, it will also have quite a substantial impact on the domestic buyers and consumers," Golara said.

Diann Valentine, 55, founder of Slayyy Hair, first felt the impact of tariffs shortly after the initial 145% tariff was imposed on China and she faced a $300,000 bill to get 26,000 units of braiding hair out of the Los Angeles port in May.

"To lose that kind of money at this stage has been devastating," Valentine said.

Since then she has raised the price of her braiding hair and drawstring ponytail extensions by 20%. She also laid off four employees and is working 16-hour days to compensate in her two Glow+Flow beauty supply stores in Inglewood and Hawthorne, California.

Slayyy Hair supplies $8.49 nontoxic braiding hair and $35.99 synthetic drawstring ponytails to TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which have resisted renegotiating prices or delivery deadlines to compensate.

"So essentially, we paid more for our ponytails than TJ Maxx and Marshalls paid for them," Valentine said. She is also trying to renegotiate price increases with Target, where she sells in at least 70 stores in California, Nevada and Colorado, she said.

TJ Maxx and Marshalls declined a Reuters request for comment.

Fifty percent of the merchandise comes from China, Valentine said, and prices for synthetic wigs, human-hair weaves, plastic hair rollers, rubber bands, combs and brushes that stock her shelves are trending up at her beauty supply locations.

"I thought maybe we would see an increase in foot traffic because there would be more DIY hairstyles - more women doing their hair at home," she said. "But for right now, we've only seen decreased foot traffic and also a decrease in frequency of visits from our existing customers."

STRUGGLING SALONS

While beauty product sales are typically resilient during economic downturns, beauty services are seen as discretionary, said Marley Brocker, senior analyst at market research firm IBISWorld.

"Tariffs on those imports are going to directly lead to higher costs for those service providers, whether they're buying directly from overseas manufacturers or buying from wholesalers within the U.S.," she said.

Black U.S. consumers spent approximately $2.29 billion on hair care products in 2022, according to a NielsenIQ study from that year.

But higher prices are causing some Black women to visit the salon less frequently. Deiara Frye, 27, of Raleigh, North Carolina, usually schedules hair appointments at least five times a year, but so far this year she's only gone once.

"Due to the cost of everything rising over the years, I tend to get braids a little more often now than sew-ins, or try to maintain my natural hair," she said. She's also seeing prices for her natural hair products like Unilever's Shea Moisture and Procter & Gamble's Pantene go up.

Fewer visits are impacting salons and beauty supply stores.

Until earlier this year, Dionne Maxwell was selling wigs, braiding hair, shampoos and conditioners out of her mini beauty supply store in Dallas, Georgia, located 33 miles outside of Atlanta, but she shut it down after she started losing foot traffic in May and moved operations into her home.

Now she's relying on orders placed through Uber Eats, TikTok Shop and Walmart.com to sustain her business, but even those sales have slowed significantly, she said.

“We don't have the money for advertising, because enough revenue is not coming in to advertise with," Maxwell said.

Tariffs have raised Maxwell’s wholesale price for China-made braiding hair by 50 cents per pack, she said, and she is now required to buy more hair in her wholesale orders.

She said she’s struggled to negotiate better prices with her hair wholesalers, who are requiring her to order more units of merchandise at higher costs.

Her wholesaler is asking her to purchase 110 packs of hair per order, when she was previously able to buy 30 packs at a time, she said.

“For the past two months, we have been basically paying our bills out of pocket because we really have had nothing coming in,” Maxwell said.