The Student Union will use the results of Student Government's Natural Hair Survey to choose what products to sell at Knight Stop. Shariah Brown, the second-year film major who started the initiative, said they'll start with selling shampoo and conditioner, and if they sell well, they'll expand to other products. 

The Student Union will use the results of Student Government's Natural Hair Survey to choose what products to sell at Knight Stop. Shariah Brown, the second-year film major who started the initiative, said they'll start with selling shampoo and conditioner, and if they sell well, they'll expand to other products. 

In collaboration with Student Government, natural hair care products may soon be available at Knight Stop, an SG representative said.

As part of an initiative by SG’s Black Caucus, SG posted the Natural Hair Survey on their Instagram page Tuesday. In a statement, Cierra Turner, SG’s director of communications and outreach, said the survey will be used to help the Student Union determine which natural hair care brands to sell in Knight Stop.

Turner said natural hair care products are made specifically for kinky, curly and coily hair to help maintain moisture and curls. The survey asks students to rank their top three choices of natural hair care brands, including Carol’s Daughter, Shea Moisture, Next of Us, Mielle Organics and Camille Rose. Shariah Brown, who started the initiative, said Knight Stop will sell shampoo and conditioner from the top three brands chosen.

Brown, a second-year film major, said she’s been working with the Black Caucus for the past year to bring natural hair care products on campus. She said there were no resources for her to take care of her hair on campus.

“I didn't have a car last year,” Brown said. “So, throughout the entire semester, my mom had been sending me hair products from home. I've had to order hair products online and wait for them to get there in order just to have shampoo and conditioner and leave-in conditioner—stuff that I could use on my own hair.”

Brown said she sent out her own survey and found that a lot of Black students had the same frustrations.

“And there was a lot of Black students who were saying that, ‘Yeah, there's nothing on campus for me to use,” she said.

Brown said they chose Knight Stop because it’s the convenience store on campus with the most foot traffic.  

“So, we want to see how well these products sell,” she said. “And if they do, if they do sell well enough, then we'll be able to start getting more products on campus such as leave-in conditioner, hair oils--things like bonnets and do rags as well.”

Brown said she hopes they’ll eventually be able to sell natural hair care products in more on-campus stores.

Turner said she takes the initiative personally because of her experience during her first year on campus. She said that Black hair requires the right use of products to look “presentable,” and a lot of the products she needed weren’t available on campus.

“With no car and limited funds for Uber/Lyft, it was a routine struggle to purchase these products as they were not sold in the stores on campus,” Turner wrote in her statement. “I would either have to borrow from a friend, ask for a ride, or use the grocery shuttle to Publix (which has limited inventory and variety of Black hair care products in general)."

Atlantis Clinkscale, junior nursing major, said she usually shops for her natural hair care products at Walmart or Sally Beauty. She said it would be cool to see those products on campus. 

"I wouldn't necessarily buy them, but like, just to walk past and be like, 'Wow, Black people are included,' or like, 'Wow, natural hair for, for us,'" she said. 

Summer-Rae Sidden, health sciences senior, said having natural hair care products on campus would be convenient. 

"You know, I wouldn't have to, like, drive all the way to Walmart to, like, get my products, I could just come here," she said. 

Jordan Thompson, hospitality management senior, said he works at the Student Union, so he could pick up hair products after he gets off work. He said he wouldn't expect UCF to be someplace that would have products he'd use for his hair.

"I think it's pretty interesting, just 'cause I assumed that there would be nowhere on campus for me to buy, like, the hair products that I'd use, you know, you know, this campus doesn't really strike you as someplace that would have that," Thompson said. 

Brown said she came up with the initiative when she saw that the only hair product for Black people in the health building was a relaxer. She said a relaxer is a chemical agent used straighten afro-textured hair. Brown said that when Black people started to be allowed to get jobs in the 1960’s and 1970’s, their natural hair was seen as unprofessional.

“It was seen as unkempt,” she said. “It was seen as dirty, things like that, and so it was more comfortable or politically correct, I guess, more professional to have your hair straight.”

Brown said continually straightening afro-textured hair is extremely damaging, but it became required to have straight hair to get a job. She said many older Black women still use relaxers because they never learned how to take care of their natural hair. Brown said she was the first person in her family to go natural with her hair and stop using relaxers.

“So, seeing that the only product in the health building was a chemical relaxer was offensive for me for a lot of reasons,” she said.

Brown said in the future, she wants to have somewhere on campus for students to get their braids, twists or locks taken care of. She said these protective hair styles help natural hair thrive.

“Hopefully we'll be able to do something like that on campus,” Brown said. “Because I feel like as a school who constantly talks about their diversity and how diverse of a school there is and puts out percentages of you know, how many Black students how many White students and all that kinds of stuff, they don't really have anything for us here.”

She said having products for Black students will help open the eyes of students of other races.

“There are some things that are missing on campus, and you shouldn't be afraid to ask for it,” Brown said. “Because if you have diverse--a diverse group of students on campus, then you should have resources for everybody since everybody's allowed to walk in the door.”

Turner said the survey will be open for a month, but based on the number of responses, it might be open longer. She said students can find the link to the survey in SG’s Instagram biography and the SG website. Turner said students can also access the survey at kiosks in the Student Union and the UCF Library.

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