Whitney White -natural85 -business Insider Article

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Meet the 29-year-old YouTuber who turned her natural hair into a massive career opportunity

Mainstream hair care brands are scrambling to cater to a market they were previously satisfied to ignore.

The $2.7 billion industry for black hair products has seen a 7% increase since 2013, according to a 2015 report by market research firm Mintel, and "more robust growth" is predicted in the next five years.

Understanding how black consumers care for their hair is "more important than ever," says the report.

But earning the product loyalty of men and women of color is about more than marketing and R&D. It's about brand trust, something many big beauty corporations have very little of when it comes to black hair care.

Enter natural hair vlogger Whitney White, better known on YouTube as Naptural85.

As YouTube rakes in billions of views per day and magazine readership continues to dwindle, vloggers are quickly replacing high-powered beauty editors as a direct route from brand to customer.


With over half a million subscribers, 52 million video views, and endorsement deals with major brands like Carol’s Daughter (owned by beauty juggernaut L'Oréal), 29-year-old White is a driving force behind a drastic shift in black hair.

You might say she's the Michelle Phan of the "natural hair movement." And yes, it is a movement.


Like the '70s icons before them (think: Diana Ross, Pam Grier, Nina Simone) today's women are embracing their natural hair and taking a step back from relaxers.

Since 2013, sales of relaxers used to chemically straighten hair have dropped by $130 million. Meanwhile, natural styling product sales have surged by $200 million.


How her passion for vlogging became her career.

This shift has helped turn White's passion into a lucrative career. “The very first time I made a dollar I was shocked,” she told Business Insider.


he thick-haired, effortlessly chic New England native always loved sharing hair care tips with her close friends and family members — but she never imagined her hobby would one day pay the bills.

When she started in 2008, YouTube was unpaid, ad-free, and full of people like her who simply loved making videos.

“The thing about YouTube is that it wasn’t a career back then. It was just a bunch of weirdos,” White jokes. “If I told anyone I made videos on YouTube, they’d look at me like I was crazy.”

Her insanity paid off big time: White now earns more than double the amount she made as an entry level graphic designer, and her income is growing every year. (The average salary for an entry-level graphic designer is approximately $43,000 in the Boston area, according to Indeed.com. This amount is an estimate).

White hadn’t always embraced her natural hair, but when going to the salon became too time consuming for her heavy college workload, she decided it was time for a change.

She found a small community of women on blogs and YouTube who were tossing out their perms and growing out their natural curls and afros. She
combed blog posts, photos, and videos from some of the go-to hair gurus of the time — but she couldn’t find anyone who represented her cork-screwed hair pattern.

So she decided to chop off her own damaged hair and vlog the process of growing it back on YouTube. From there, her brand was born.

Her biggest deal to date and a typical day's work.
White’s income originally came solely from YouTube’s advertising revenue system, Google AdSense. It wasn't until the birth of her daughter (when thoughts of college tuition sprang to mind) that she started working with brands and creating sponsored content.

Her ambassadorship for Carol’s Daughter is one of her biggest deals to date.

Carol's Daughter multimedia manager September Davis told Business Insider that it's the genuine demeanor of YouTubers that makes them great brand promoters. "Girls on YouTube are our friends," says Davis. "[Carol's Daughter would] rather have girls that are super relatable, rather than a typical celebrity that will do whatever you ask them to as long as you have the right check."

And White isn't all about the money.

“I try not to promote anything I wouldn’t personally purchase,” says White. “I’ve turned down a lot of money … I’ve turned down deals from huge companies … because I didn’t like the ingredients in the product.”

According to White, big brands like L’Oréal are rushing to create natural hair products — and they're counting on beauty vloggers to help promote them.

“A lot of times [brands] want to get into the [natural hair] market but don't know how,” says White. “They don’t understand what our exact needs are."

As for her typical workflow, filming only takes up 1% of White's very busy day.

Between day-long meetings, personal appearances, travel, secret projects, emails, editing, and spending valuable time with her husband and daughter, White’s schedule is hectic.

To help manage her growing business, she recently did something she'd initially wanted to avoid — she hired a small staff.

“I’m kind of a perfectionist, so I like to try to do everything myself,” she admits. “I’ve actually started to hire people onto my team. I just realized that it’s necessary.”


To ensure that her private emails don’t end up in the wrong hands, White hires only friends and family members. “I’m happy that I can support my friends and family and they can help me and intern.”

At the end of her busy day, White can't imagine doing anything else. “Even if YouTube stopped, if there was no such thing as monetization, if we weren't getting paid, I would continue making videos because it’s what I love to do.”
 
I sure wish I would have jumped on that Youtube hair train when it first started. Oh well

I like Whit so congrats to her!

Me too. Just the Youtube train in general for me. I've thought about it a lot over the years. I wish I would have just did it. Even if it wasn't a full-time thing. It would be nice to just have it as supplemental income. I have a fledgling channel but I don't even know if I'll continue to make videos. It so saturated now.
 
Congratulations to Whitney! One of my favorites! I use a lot of her DIY recipes and have been watching her since she had a short afro.
 
Me too. Just the Youtube train in general for me. I've thought about it a lot over the years. I wish I would have just did it. Even if it wasn't a full-time thing. It would be nice to just have it as supplemental income. I have a fledgling channel but I don't even know if I'll continue to make videos. It so saturated now.
And the only reason I didn't do it is because I hate the way I look on camera. I'll just be honest, I was not (and still not) confident enough to talk on camera and have other people watching me. I have all the hair knowledge and a pretty awesome head of hair too.
 
I sure wish I would have jumped on that Youtube hair train when it first started. Oh well

Me too. Just the Youtube train in general for me. I've thought about it a lot over the years. I wish I would have just did it. Even if it wasn't a full-time thing. It would be nice to just have it as supplemental income.

Me three! Especially since I've been natural my whole life and spent most of it trying to convince all my friends and family to join me. Now that it's "hot" all those ladies the wouldn't part with the perm to save their lives are always hitting me up for advise. SMH

I coulda been a contender! :cry3:

I am happy for those ladies who found their niche, though. I'm glad those dollars are finding their way into black pockets.
 
Me three! Especially since I've been natural my whole life and spent most of it trying to convince all my friends and family to join me. Now that it's "hot" all those ladies the wouldn't part with the perm to save their lives are always hitting me up for advise. SMH

I coulda been a contender! :cry3:

I am happy for those ladies who found their niche, though. I'm glad those dollars are finding their way into black pockets.

Me too. Just the Youtube train in general for me. I've thought about it a lot over the years. I wish I would have just did it. Even if it wasn't a full-time thing. It would be nice to just have it as supplemental income. I have a fledgling channel but I don't even know if I'll continue to make videos. It so saturated now.

I sure wish I would have jumped on that Youtube hair train when it first started. Oh well

I like Whit so congrats to her!


You can still become a vlogger/blogger. If you read the article she states when she first started there was no money involved. That was 6 years ago! Open your business, promote it like she did and report back in 6 years. Whit's channel was not a "job" until maybe the last two years. It was a hobby for her and something she enjoyed doing.
 
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Of all the times I've watched her , I never knew her last name was White lol. Then again, I have missed a few videos..
Welp, at any rate congrats Whit!
 
Once I get a real computer and editing software, I might just start a youtube channel. You never know. I look at utubers minimarley and smartistabeauty and they just started out and they now have over 200,000 subscribers. I remember watching a utube video on how to make money on utube. The utuber said that it's not about subscribers but views/likes.
 
I've watched quite a few of her videos even though I'm not natural..She also has a style/diy Channel as well :)
 
I'm glad she was featured over other YouTubers that could have been mentioned. Whitney is still one of my favorite hair vloggers to this day. I subscribe to many other YouTubers but they mix too much "hauls" and personal stuff in their primary hair videos. Naptural85 was smart in that she made two different channels for that reason.
 
I'm glad she was featured over other YouTubers that could have been mentioned. Whitney is still one of my favorite hair vloggers to this day. I subscribe to many other YouTubers but they mix too much "hauls" and personal stuff in their primary hair videos. Naptural85 was smart in that she made two different channels for that reason.


I agree.
 
Yes, Whitney is so down-to-earth and crunchy granola like. I feel like she's being herself but still aware that she has a diverse base of viewers.

Like one vid she did an updo natural styling tutorial and used gel to slick her edges. She was careful to state that she doesn't do this too often at all but realized that some people do and want to see the style finished off in this way.
 
Love whit and the quality of her videos you can tell that even if the money left she'd still do blogs and some beauty stuff. Like 8f YouTube stopped paying about half of the big name people would never make another video(understandable though) bit I feel like whit would still be doing semi weekly videos lol
 
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