All Articles Tagged "Design Essentials"
Even After Decades In Hair Care, McBride Research Laboratories Keeps Up With The Modern Woman
A Design Essential Natural model
Hair is on our heads and on our minds. The search for the right style — and the right products to maintain it — is never-ending.
The family behind hair care brand Design Essentials has been in the hair business since the 1970s. They’ve seen four decades of hair styles come and go. They know that staying current, ahead of the curve even, is critical to maintaining relevance.
Cornell McBride Jr.
“From a historical standpoint, the 70s had a sense of pride with the afros,” Cornell McBride Jr., president of McBride Research Laboratories told MadameNoire on a recent phone call. Cornell McBride, Sr., the president and CEO of McBride Research Laboratories, launched M&Ms Product Companies back in 1973. One of their first big products was Sta-Sof-Fro, a product for men’s hair. By the 80s, the company had a number of big products, including Sof-N-Free, Moxie, and Curly Perm. That company was sold to Johnson Products in 1989. McBride Research Laboratories has been producing Design Essentials for more than 20 years.
“There was a change to relaxers then curls to relaxers,” McBride Jr. continues. “And now, it’s an evolution. Women are exploring natural [hair] because of liberation.”
As much as we think about our hair, we don’t want to be consumed with it. Our hair care products have always worked to keep us looking good. But now they have the added duty to make our lives a little easier. To innovate, Design Essentials has to bring customers the products to fit the lives they live.
“She wants flexibility with her lifestyle,” McBride continues highlighting the average woman’s active life working out at the gym, tending to family, and enjoying leisure time, and more. Living life by a stylist’s schedule is impossible.
Study Says Black Women With Natural Hair Increased Big Time in 2011
The title of an article published on USA Today today says, “‘Natural hair’ is making waves among black women.” Well, of course. If you look around you these days, so many more women are coming out of their homes with large eclectic afros, locks of all colors, TWAs that they proudly boast, braids, twists and pressed hair that have reached new and exciting links. The proof is in the pudding, and now it seems to be in statistical form.
The hair-care company, Design Essentials, started a study in 2010 to measure the popularity of natural hair. While the number of women who ditched relaxed hair was 26 percent in 2010, it has jumped up big time with a 10 percent increase hitting 36 percent for 2011. According to USA Today and Mintel, a consumer spending and market research firm, relaxer kit sales have also dropped by nearly 17 percent since 2006. “Natural hair has been a movement for several years. What we’re seeing now is a confirmation that this is a lifestyle that is very important to a lot of women,” says Cyntelia Abrams, a marketing coordinator for Design Essentials.
There definitely seems to be an appeal in going natural these days. This might have to do with the money and time some women are saving by decreasing their salon visits, and from the comfort of knowing that whatever amazing or crazy things their hair may be doing everyday, there’s something fab about knowing that it’s all from their own scalp. And let’s not even get started on the rain benefits…I think all hair is beautiful (no pressure, do your thing), and I realize that natural hair isn’t the way most women are necessarily trying to go (yet), but it’s nice to hear that women are embracing their own strands one day at a time. I can only imagine that numbers are going to continue to increase as the years go by. I see 50 percent for 2012 easily!
Do you feel like you’re seeing a huge increase in natural-haired women as you move around?
