The Shelf Audit Files No. 24 — Priciest Per Ounce

Two jars sit on the same shelf at Target. A little bottle of hair oil, about ten dollars for two ounces. A big thirty-two ounce tub of moisturiser, about fourteen dollars. Do the sum on the back of each one. The little oil comes out to five dollars an ounce. The big tub comes out to forty-four cents an ounce. Same aisle, more than ten times the price for every ounce you carry home.

This book does not start with who owns these brands. It starts with the number the front of the bottle hopes you skip: the price per ounce. Flip the jar, find the ounces, divide the price. That is the whole method, and it is a sum any of us can do standing in the aisle.

Eleven Black hair and beauty brands, sorted by that one number. Six that charge you the most for every ounce, five that hand you the most for your dollar. It is a buying guide, not a takedown — about what a jar costs per ounce and where your dollar lands, never about whether the product works on your hair. That last one is your call, and this book never makes it.