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Black beauty salons and wholesalers have been hit hard by

tariffs

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Prices of Chinese-made hair extensions have skyrocketed

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Small beauty businesses are forced to pass costs on to

customers

By Arriana McLymore, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson and

Julio-Cesar Chavez

PHILADELPHIA/ SMYRNA, Georgia Aug 19 (Reuters) - Earlier

this summer, Dajiah Blackshear-Calloway, 34, started to notice

that her regular clients weren't visiting her hair salon as

often as they used to.

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.