Five Videos Of 1970s Television Ads For "Ultra Sheen" & "Afro-Sheen" Black Hair Care Products

RetroBlackMedia, Sep 20, 2010

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about "Ultra Sheen" and "Afro-Sheen" Black hair care products.
   
This pancocojams post showcases five YouTube videos of television ads from "Ultra Sheen" & "Afro- Sheen" Black hair care products. 

This post also includes information and commentary about the cultural impact among Black people of these products.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/01/comments-from-youtube-discussion.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post presents selected comments from various YouTube videos' discussion threads. 

The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Johnson Product Company for creating, manufacturing, and marketing Ultra Sheen and Afro-Sheen products. Thanks to all those who were associated with these ads, and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to all those who published these ads on YouTube.  

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INFORMATION ABOUT ULTRA SHEEN & AFRO-SHEEN
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Products_Company
"Not to be confused with Johnson & Johnson or S.C. Johnson.

Johnson Products Company (JPC) is a privately held American business based in Chicago, Illinois. It is best known for manufacturing a line of hair care and cosmetic products for African American consumers under the names Afro Sheen and Ultra Sheen. The company was a longtime sponsor of the syndicated US television dance show Soul Train until that program's cancellation.

History

In 1954, salesman George E. Johnson, Sr., his wife Joan Johnson, and a barber who later left the company formed what would become Johnson Products with a $250 loan.[1][2] The company produced Ultra Wave, a hair relaxer aimed at men that George developed while at Fuller Products, an African American cosmetics company.[1][3] The product was sold in Chicago, Harlem and other African American neighborhoods of New York City to barbers.[3]

Joan repositioned the product in 1957 as Ultra Sheen and marketed it to women.[1][4] The product was aimed at African American women who straightened their hair to eliminate the need to use a hot comb, grease, and frequent trips to the beauty shop.[1][3] By the 1960s had an estimated 80 percent of the black hair-care market and annual sales of $12.6 million by 1970.[1] In 1971, JPC went public and was the first African American owned company to trade on the American Stock Exchange.[1][5]

The company's most well-known product was Afro Sheen for natural hair when afros became popular.[2][4] Marketing for the product featured slogans that encouraged racial pride, as embodied by the "Black is beautiful" movement.[6] These slogans included "Natural Hair hangs out. Beautiful!" and "soul food for the natural."[7] In 1971, JPC began sponsoring Soul Train. The sponsorship helped the program grow from a local show to a nationally syndicated cultural icon, making JPC the first African American company to sponsor a national television program.[3][8]"...

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Excerpt #2
From https://andscape.com/features/hair-care-pioneer-joan-johnson-made-ultra-sheen-afro-sheen-and-ultra-sheen-cosmetics-a-feature-of-black-identity/ By Lonnae O'Neal, September 10, 2019

Hair care pioneer Joan Johnson made ‘Ultra Sheen, Afro Sheen and Ultra Sheen cosmetics’ a feature of black identity

Her company sold an uplifting version of black hair care — by any product necessary

 It was the product itself, the not-too-heavy blue grease (or green if you needed the extra dry formula) that had one job — to manage (lay down, wave up, detangle and shine) black hair — and always did what it was supposed to do. It became baked into the daily grooming rituals of my childhood in a way that made it a totem for an era. A pre-gentrification, get-your-education, no-frills time when black people needed neatness, at a minimum, at an accessible price point. It was a tool, rather than a status product, which distinguished it from the fancier, more self-important black hair care lines that followed — especially when white companies moved into the lucrative black hair care market they’d long ignored.

[…]

The company’s product line also included other hair care and grooming products. Johnson Products sponsored the syndicated dance program Soul Train, and a huge swath of black America will remember the line “ … makers of Ultra Sheen, Afro Sheen and Ultra Sheen Cosmetics,” voiced by Soul Train host Don Cornelius, for the rest of our lives.”

[…]

“I also remember the joy of putting the sheen on your Afro,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is likely the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to have ever voiced that particular recollection. He met Joan and George Johnson when he was president of the Chicago Historical Society, and they talked about the power of those weekly Soul Train plugs. “In a way, the Johnsons captured the tenor of the time and used that desire to express one’s blackness as a key to their marketing strategy,” he said. “Whenever I think about the commercials, I smile and recall a time when we were all discovering our blackness.”

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ADDITIONAL VIDEOS
These videos are presented in chronological order, based on the year that the ad was first aired.*

I don't know the year Showcase video #1 was first aired.

SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Ultra Sheen Products (1971)

Retro Black Media, April 16, 2013

Here's Sunni (?) promoting Ultra Sheen Products with S.T.'s Gang Beverly and Lena.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 - Afro Sheen Commercial 

Damian Sheets, Jun 16, 2006

159,147 views • Jun 16, 2006

This an old ad for afro sheen back in the 70's,I think. -snip- Another video of this same ad gives "1975" as the date that it was first aired.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #4 - Ultra Sheen Hair care Products ad (1977)

RetroBlackMedia, Oct 1, 2016

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SHOWCASE VIDEO #5 - Afro Sheen ad

RetroBlackMedia, Oct 1, 2016

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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.

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