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Shea Moisture Body Wash

Source: InteractiveOne / shea moisture hair product

Black-Owned hair care company Shea Moisture has issued an apology for using a white woman in an ad, saying: “We Really F-ed This One Up.”

Black women are criticizing Shea Moisture’s new ad, and many are comparing it to Pepsi’s gaffe with Kendall Jenner.

In the new promotional ad (above), Shea Moisture is catching flack for “abandoning” its primary market — black women with natural hair.

Shea Moisture first shared the ad on its Facebook page Friday and captioned it with “Break free from hair HATE. See how these women have finally learned to embrace hair LOVE.” The ad prominently featured mostly white women, sharing their experience with hair hate.

Many black women and men with natural hair took to social media to share their frustrations.

“I just want to let you all know that you have essentially lost the segment of the market that put you on top. Not another dime will I give to this company. Black women are sharing this video in natural hair groups and we are not happy,” one Facebook user wrote.

Peep some additional comments from users below:

Following the initial controversy, Shea Moisture issued a statement with HelloBeautiful.com, noting that their black-owned family business does not take their prime clientele for granted.

“When large conglomerates ignored women of color and simply marketed products to them vs. making products for them. We were there then – serving women who had historically been undeserved in the beauty industry – and that will never change,” the company wrote.

Shea Moisture wants you to know that its new innovations are aimed at serving ALL women, not just black women.

“As a company, we have chosen to take a more thoughtful and specific approach to our products that is based on those needs – whether hair that is 4c, 3b, 2a, thick, thinning, damaged, dry, coily, curly, wavy, straight…or skin that is dry, oily, or distressed by psoriasis, eczema or any number of conditions – we’ve created a product for it. We make no apologies for solving for and speaking to our community as human beings and not as data points.”

The response wasn’t good enough for critics and looming controversy forced the company to officially announce its removal:

Shea Moisture decided to give it another try with a second ad that features models with natural styles like dreadlocks, coils and afros:

SOURCE: EURweb.com

Article Courtesy of EURweb

First Picture Courtesy of Shea Moisture Hair Product and InteractiveOne

Second Picture Courtesy of Facebook, Shea Moisture Hair Product, and EURweb

First Video Courtesy of Shea Moisture Hair Product, YouTube, and EURweb

Tweets and Second Video Courtesy of Twitter and EURweb

Shea Moisture Apologizes for Ad Featuring White Woman  was originally published on wzakcleveland.com