Black-owned brand, Jim + Henry, is now stocked at the zero waste shop, The Dispensary, to provide organic refillable hair care products for people with afro/curly hair in Salford.
The Dispensary will be the first to provide refillable hair care in the northwest and will join four other zero waste stores in the UK supplying Jim + Henry.
Tammy Facey, created Jim + Henry in 2017 after she was encouraged by friends when they saw that she made her own organic hair care products by using shea butter and essential oils. Ms Facey then began selling her homemade hair care online at Jim + Henry.com.
Ms Facey spoke about what it means to the brand to work with The Dispensary and the importance of supporting black owned independent brands. She said:
“Fay (owner of The Dispensary) actively supports black owned businesses.”
“I really like that small indie brands do genuinely mean that because they have the time. Compared to ‘black-washing’ like Sainsbury’s or big companies like Boots that might just have the token black owned brand.
“Stores like The Dispensary genuinely mean it.”
Owner of The Dispensary, Fay Watts, went onto say that the collaboration was something that they’d wanted to do for awhile to actively support the black community:
“I always knew in the back of my mind we needed to be more inclusive.
“We’re not talking just a black square on the Instagram feed. We want to support, show and prove and say to everyone that we’re here and we want everyone to come into our shop. And try and be zero waste but also feel comfortable and have products that they want to buy.”
“I want to be involved with the movement and back an amazing woman, an amazing brand and an amazing company.”
Ms Watts believes that Jim + Henry provides quality products as well as being black owned:
“Its not just the fact its a black owned business, its the quality of the product. We want to offer something for a wider range of people and cultures”
As a former University of Salford student, Ms Facey really wanted to bring her products to Salford and to provide more accessibility to hair care for people with natural, curly/afro hair in the north. Ms Facey says:
“I just though there must be somewhere in the city where I studied and I found The Dispensary on Instagram.”
“So many of my customers up north said look, where can we get your stuff from here?”
The Dispensary will stock Jim + Henry’s best-seller “Eight” – the UK’s first eight ingredient leave-in conditioner priced at £20 ( 500ml container), or shoppers can come in for a refill at £3.80 per 100ml.
By purchasing from The Dispensary instead of online at Jim + Henry customers avoid paying for post and packaging. Both businesses have an ethos of being environmentally friendly. The Dispensary’s mission is to “make zero waste accessible” and Jim + Henry uses recycled packaging. Ms Facey comments:
“We’re all more aware of what’s going on around us”
“I’m all about saving the planet and reducing carbon footprint.”
Since starting in 2017, Jim + Henry has gone international seeing stockists from Atlanta, India and the UK. But Ms Facey comments on the lack of support for black hair from businesses across the globe. She founded #frotober where she encourages people to upload a selfie of their afro hair to instagram using the hashtag “frotober” said:
“We need to talk about black hair, it’s beautiful it’s natural and we’ve got to celebrate it.”
“For years black women’s hair has been policed.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B35QgC5AdgQ/?igshid=2ccrfw2bpgb7
Ms Watts feels that this could be because businesses are afraid of “getting it wrong”. But she encourages other businesses to show their support. She said:
“I think a lot of businesses might be afraid to open that discussion in case it offends or someone is like ‘oh what’s it got to do with you?’
“I hope we can increase our product range and work with Jim + Henry more closely in the future.
“I love the company, I love the brand. Tammy is amazing. She’s a little ray of sunshine.”
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