The launch grows the Sundial Brands portfolio to three. The company’s two other brands, Shea Moisture and Nubian Heritage, both include hair care lines. But Madame C.J. Walker Beauty Culture is a brand that’s all about hair care and styling products.
Strategic distribution
The brand launched last Friday, exclusively at Sephora, and includes shampoo, conditioners, conditioning hair masques, curl gel and more.
“There are four hair collections. One is a coconut collection made for curly hair, Dreams Come True is made for scalp treatments, the Jamaican Black Castor Oil collection is about softening and repairing the hair, and the Brassica Seed is broccoli oil for styling and shine,” explains Richelieu Dennis, CEO of Sundial Brands, in conversation with Victoria T. Davis of the Indianapolis Recorder.
Years in the making
Sundial Brands struck a deal to acquire the Madame C.J. Walker name just a few years ago. And Dennis had been brainstorming about such a brand for several years before that.
Walker’s family was of course part of the process. Historian A'Lelia Bundles, great-great granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, spoke with Davis about the Sundial Brands launch.
“When she started her company in 1906, she was addressing the needs of women then,” explains Bundles. “For me, it's taking Madam Walker's creation then, and keeping that same philosophy with a new formula that really looks at the versatility of women who have different hair styles and textures. It's Madam Walker as she would be in the 21st century.”
Beauty for all
As time marches on, retailers better incorporate hair care, personal care, and beauty that meets the needs and expectations of diverse consumers into their product selection, and a larger cross-section of the community finds something worth buying.
“As the population continues to shift, beauty brands need to develop new products and campaigns to satisfy the unmet needs of the diverse beauty consumer,” says Carlotta Jacobson, president of CEW.
This insight applies to multinational corporations, smaller niche companies, to retailers, to ingredient makers, etc.
As Cosmetics Design reported late in 2015, “lifestyles, beauty preferences, and individual needs influence consumer choices now much more directly than simple demographics or regional conventions do. And the flourishing multicultural beauty market has a lot to do with this shift.”