Selling Black American beauty: the intersection of cultural and economic capital at the beauty supply store

Drawing on interviews with 20 millennial Black women in the U.S., embodied beauty knowledge becomes visible in local beauty supply stores. Study participants' repeated experiences searching for products within a minimally designed beauty retail environment revealed two perceptions of the beauty supply store as: 1) a site of cultural beauty consumption and creation, and 2) a shopping experience characterized by hyper-surveillance reinforced through structural elements. Informed by repeated exposure to the hypersurveilled environment of the store, participants illuminated the process of creating hairstyles and beauty trends in response to the creative resources available in their immediate environment. For some, pursuing hair maintenance at the beauty supply store was a pleasant experience, while for others, store fixtures and interactions with employees created a tense retail environment. In the face of these conflicting realities, study participants developed embodied beauty knowledge through consistent interaction within these sites of the embedded, invisible knowledge held by store owners and customers. Under these conditions, Black American beauty culture flourishes through ongoing beauty practices as future generations apply their embodied beauty knowledge and return to beauty supply stores to create styles inspired by their environments.