Up until now, many drugstores and retailers stored a large majority of their multicultural beauty products behind locked cases, but thanks to the discriminatory policy being brought to light online, that's changing at the chains CVS and Walgreens.
The sudden but long overdue news comes not long after Walmart announced its policy change [1] on June 10. Prior to that, many beauty and personal care items geared towards people of colour were locked behind plastic cases and required employee assistance to access them, while products that were not were left on open shelves. This decision is just one of the ways many brands and retailers are taking action to fight systemic racism [2] and inequality in the beauty industry.
"We are currently ensuring multicultural hair care and beauty products are not stored behind locked cases at any of our stores, which has been the case at a limited number of our stores," Walgreens said in a statement to POPSUGAR.
While CVS claims that they have never locked up products based on race or ethnicity, they are adapting their policy nonetheless. "We have a firm nondiscrimination policy [3] that applies to all aspects of our business and our product protection measures have never been based on the race or ethnicity of our customers," read a statement sent to Business Insider by CVS. "After reviewing the security measures we have in place for many different products and categories, we are taking steps in our stores to ensure that no hair, beauty, or personal-care products for communities of colour are kept in locked displays or shelving units."