THE FULL BUYING GUIDE — 16 pages, $4.99: https://declassifiedhistory.gumroad.com/l/shelf-audit-13-where-your-dollar-stopsAll ten jars — who owns them, and where your dollar actually stops.Become A Member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb49IBN25rnzvsi5MyRgfYQ/joinTHE FIVE THE LISTS GET WRONG (owner on the record):• O-KAY Pure Naturals — a Miami Gardens family business, Xtreme Beauty International. Minority-certified with the NMSDC, which is real, but minority-owned and Black-owned are not the same thing. No Black-owned claim on their own materials. The lists are the ones that got it wrong.• SheaMoisture — Black-founded, and sold to Unilever in November 2017. Nubian Heritage went in the same deal, so those two jars share one corporate parent.• Sky Organics — owned by Nexus Capital Management, a Los Angeles private-equity firm. The product genuinely is raw and unrefined; the owner is a fund.• Tree Hut — Naterra International, the Song family of Coppell, Texas. The product everyone buys is a sugar scrub that wears shea as a name.• NOW Solutions — roughly thirty percent employee-owned through an ESOP as of January 2026. Honest, and connected to no cooperative upstream. Not a villain, just not source-connected.THE FIVE THAT REALLY ARE (and where your dollar goes):• Alaffia — founder Olowo-n'djo Tchala says he lost control in 2022, and bought the company back in 2025. Founder-owned again. Women's cooperatives in Togo and Ghana, ECOCERT-audited. Carried at Target.• Shea Radiance — Funlayo Alabi, Savage, Maryland. Cooperatives across Nigeria, Ghana and Benin. The fourteen-ounce raw jar is the best value in the whole video.• Eu'Genia Shea — a Ghanaian-American mother and daughter. Pays a twenty percent premium on the nuts, and separately puts fifteen percent of profits back to the women and their communities. Their own storefront was down when we filmed, so there is no buy-direct link below for this one.• R&R Luxury — Valerie Obaze, made tree-to-bottle in Ghana, buying above market through the Women of the Savannah Development Project.• Shea Yeleen — Rahama Wright, Washington DC. The company says it pays its producers five times Ghana's daily minimum wage. It is the priciest per ounce, and now you know why.Buy direct from the source (canonical brand sites):• Alaffia — https://alaffia.com (also carried at Target)• Shea Radiance — https://shearadiance.com• R&R Luxury — https://randrskincare.co• Shea Yeleen — https://sheayeleen.comThe ten-second shelf check: divide the price by the ounces to get the real number, then search the brand name plus "acquired" or "who owns." A source-connected brand names the cooperative and the region without being asked. Two more tells: a minority-owned certificate is not a Black-owned one, and "Ghana" on a label can describe where a nut was picked rather than who was paid.▶️ Start here — These 6 'Black-Owned' Beauty Brands Aren't Black-Owned Anymore: https://youtu.be/iayN_3CZmvk▶️ The sequel — 6 More 'Black-Owned' Beauty Brands: https://youtu.be/kK9dyn0RbW8Everything here is ownership, origin, and price — public records and the companies' own announcements. Nothing here is a claim about what any product does.Some links here may be affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes which brands make this list. (FTC 16 CFR 255.)Chapters:0:00 The Jar The Lists Got Wrong1:25 What To Sort On, And Sixteen Million Women3:05 O-KAY Pure Naturals: Minority-Certified, Not Black-Owned5:10 SheaMoisture: Black-Founded, Sold In 20177:05 Sky Organics: The Owner Is A Fund8:30 Tree Hut: A Sugar Scrub Named Shea9:50 NOW Solutions: Honest, Just Not Connected11:20 Alaffia: Bought Back In 202513:00 Shea Radiance: The Best Value In The Video14:45 Eu'Genia: The Premium And The Profit Share16:35 R And R Luxury: Tree To Bottle In Ghana18:05 Shea Yeleen: The Crown19:30 Ten Side By Side, And The Ten-Second CheckSOURCES: