Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada's Black Beauty Culture

One of the first transnational, feminist studies of American black beauty culture in Canada, and the role that media, retail, and consumers have played in its development, Beauty in a Box widens our understanding of the global politics of black hair.

The book analyzes advertisements and articles from media--newspapers, advertisements, television, and other sources--that focus on black communities in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary. The author explains the role local black community media has played in the promotion of African American-owned beauty products; how the segmentation of beauty culture (i.e., the sale of black beauty products on store shelves labelled "ethnic hair care") occurred in Canada; and how black beauty culture, which was generally seen as a small niche market before the 1970s, entered Canada's mainstream by way of department stores, drugstores, and big-box retailers.

Beauty in a Box uses an interdisciplinary framework, engaging with African American history, critical race and cultural theory, consumer culture theory, media studies, diasporic art history, black feminism, visual culture, film studies, and political economy to explore the history of black beauty culture in both Canada and the United States.

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Published: 04/17/2019
Pages: 240
Weight: 1.1lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781771123587

About the Author
Thompson, Cheryl: - Cheryl Thompson has a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from McGill University. She is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2018) at the University of Toronto, where she teaches courses on visual culture, North American cultural history, and promotional culture. She was born and raised in Toronto.