Hello.

Hi. My name is Valerie. I'm a married mother of one scoop of preciousness, a handbagista, beauty junkie, documentary lover and recovering shopoholic. Like many working black women in the world, especially in America I love to shop. I mean we shop a lot. According to the 2013 Neilson Annual Consumer Report "Women control 43% of the annual spending power for the Black population." and not only that, "blacks consistently place a higher emphasis on grooming and beauty categories and at the top of that list is ethnic hair and Beauty aids (haBa), which Blacks purchase nine times more than others. hair care is serious business in the Black community at all income levels."  We spend nine times more on beauty that any other group. NINE. TIMES. MORE. This of course means anyone would be lucky and thrilled to have us as customers. So why then do we continually shop with retailers or companies who don't value us at the least and are blatantly racist at worst? My guess is maybe they don't know. Well that is where this blog comes in. Each post will highlight a specific offender as well as featuring an equal or better alternate.The world has proven time and again that black women are not worthy of respect or visibility not even when were rich (see Oprah trying to buy a handbag in Europe here). After not spending a dime on black friday in protest I had the courage to continue. I decided to take it one step further especially with higher end purchases to make sure the brand, parent company or retailer has a good track record or respecting my black purchase power. Until next time.


The struggle continues