The Shelf Audit Files No. 16 — Founder Owned

A tub of Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula runs 38 cents an ounce at Target. It has sat in our bathroom cabinets for three generations, and it has never been Black-owned — not for one day since 1971.

The question underneath that is the one this book answers: how do you tell a brand that is still hers from a brand that just kept her name on the label after somebody else took it over? The answer is not the story on the jar. It is the paperwork, and the price per ounce.

Five Black-owned skincare brands where the founder never lost the pen, checked against the actual ownership record and priced by the ounce — from $10.50 to $68. It is a buying guide about who owns the company and what the ounce costs you. It is not a claim about whether anything here works or is safe for your skin.