Black Girl Magic: BLK + GRN Edition
The market for all-natural products has been on a constant rise as more and more consumers are vowing against toxic ingredients that are damaging to their health and lifestyle routines. However, the majority of non-toxic products are primarily catered towards white women, and there is a significantly large gap regarding products that are made by and for women of color, specifically black women. Dr. Kristian Henderson, founder of BLK + GRN, is making a difference in the black community by eliminating the barriers black women face when searching for all-natural products.
BLK + GRN is an e-commerce marketplace that sells all-natural products spanning across multiple categories, including bath and body, hair, beauty, feminine care, and skincare. Some of their products include deep conditioning hair masks and sunscreen that won’t leave a sticky residue or white cast on darker skin, according to the product description.
As a black-owned company, BLK + GRN takes pride in selling products exclusively made by black artisans who are carefully chosen by black women health experts.
On their website, BLK + GRN’s mission statement addresses the importance of marketing all-natural merchandise to black women: “We've seen firsthand the damaging effects harmful ingredients and practices have had on our community. Our marketplace connects Black women with natural lifestyles to high-quality, toxic-free brands that share in our mission of health, wellness and community cultivation.”
Before she founded BLK + GRN, Henderson was a hospital administer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore; a George Washington University professor; and a yoga instructor. She then created a platform whose importance strives from “empowering the black community to take ownership of their health decisions … while also funneling the dollars we spend back into the businesses of our brothers and sisters,” according to Essence.
By only selling products of black artisans within the marketplace, BLK + GRN illustrate the tremendous buying power of the black community.
BLK + GRN also encourages black women to break out of the social norms inflicted upon them by fixating on the importance of wellness and overall happiness. As an entrepreneur, Henderson finds that many women, especially black women, are becoming business owners and display leadership that is necessary to challenge these norms.
“I like to say that happiness, which I think is directly connected to wellness, is revolutionary for black women,” Henderson stated as quoted in Glamour. “Historically, I don't really think that we've been allowed to be happy. There's a lot of external pressures that black women face about being strong and being resilient. … I think that we're challenging a lot of the norms and the pressures that we've historically felt.”
Aside from being an innovative company that focuses on the wellness of black women, BLK + GRN is a perfect example of what the phrase “Black Girl Magic” entails and why it is significant.
Black Girl Magic was first popularized by CaShawn Thompson in 2013 through social media platforms to “celebrate the beauty, power, and resilience of black women,” according to HuffPost. Years later, the phrase is still used to acclaim the accomplishments made by black women, and it has now become a mainstream movement used to give a voice to all black women who may be silenced.
The usage of the word “magic” was precisely chosen by Thompson to characterize black women’s accomplishments.
“I say ‘magic’ because it’s something that people don’t always understand,” Thompson explained as quoted in Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes our accomplishments might seem to come out of thin air, because a lot of times, the only people supporting us are other black women.”
While celebrating black women has become increasingly normalized, black women—specifically celebrities and public figures—continuously face discrimination, and many obstacles are put in place to prevent black women from succeeding. Black women experience a constant battle of not being represented enough, not being pretty enough, not being enough.
Supporting black women is vitally important, and Henderson and the other women at BLK + GRN are continuing the conversation of health and wellness within the black community, which is deserving of immense recognition.