UNITED WE SHOP: Black Beauty Advert-ism and the Business of Social Justice

The overlapping cosmetics and personal care industries have long been considered a political battleground where racially charged debates about the value and definition of beauty have been waged. In 2019, Dove reframed the stakes of this decades-long struggle when they partnered with a coalition of legislators and social justice organizations to petition for Black beauty rights. The CROWN Act, which aims to end “discrimination based on race-based hairstyles” became the centerpiece for Dove’s multicultural promotional strategy. This maneuver afforded the brand, which had faced recent criticism for its attempts at inclusive messaging, new credibility amid a national reckoning around race. My chapter will use Dove’s CROWN Act as a case study to explore the contemporary manifestation of Black beauty advert-ism; specifically, the conditions that give rise to such a promotional strategy and what this phenomenon reveals about commercialism and social justice in the twenty-first century.