Mielle Organics is facing backlash after a recent advertisement for its Rosemary Mint collection prompted accusations that the brand was conveying a negative message about tightly textured Black hair.
The message urged customers to “swipe for the before after” while presenting the Rosemary Mint line as part of a regimen aimed at achieving “stronger-feeling, healthy-looking hair.”
For some customers, the concern wasn’t the product itself but the message the imagery projected about natural Black hair.
The advertisement displayed a Black woman with a large, less-defined Afro labeled as “weak & dull.”
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The accompanying “after” image showed her hair appearing more defined, elongated and shiny beneath the words “shiny & strong.”
Content creator Kiandria criticized the brand on Threads.
“They are buying our brands and using them to sell us anti-blackness,” she wrote, tagging Mielle and denouncing the advertisement as “UNACCEPTABLE.”
Other responses were equally blunt. “IKYFL,” one commenter wrote.
Another commenter, in a post that was later deleted, stated, “ain’t no way.”
View on Threads
One critic also questioned the company’s ownership and its ties to Procter & Gamble.
“Naw naw naw @mielleorganics I KNOW y’all didn’t think you could delete faster than I screenshot. I SEENT IT! @proctorgamble This NON MELANATED OWNED company has some explaining to do! Come on mielle and proctorgamble, I promise the ladies will be patient,” the commenter wrote.
The same individual continued to criticize Mielle even after the company issued an apology, questioning how the advertisement could have appeared if it had already been rejected during the brand’s review process.
“So if it was rejected but still posted that means your team didn’t care about the rejection, the reason for the rejection, nor the consequences of posting it,” the commenter wrote. They also suggested the incident pointed to a broader issue in workplace culture.
A separate commenter pushed back against the notion that the “weak and dull” descriptor was inherently negative.
“Give me ‘Weak and Dull’ any day!!! If I decide not to loc my hair again. I need my sh-t to bounce like dancing machine MJ when I randomly cut a rug,” one person expressed.
Mielle responded by acknowledging the criticism and offering an apology for the post.
“We hear you, and we agree. This wasn’t okay,” the company said.
View on Threads
Mielle explained that the material had indeed been rejected during its internal review, yet it went live regardless. The company said it took down the post and pledged to strengthen its internal review procedures.
The apology did little to quell the backlash.
One commenter contended that publishing rejected material could not simply be dismissed as an accident.
“So it got rejected but STILL ‘made its way live?’ That wasn’t a mistake – that was a CHOICE!” the person wrote. They added that Black consumers should not be required to “call you in” over advertising they deemed disrespectful, warning that the dispute had cost the brand customers.
The debate places Mielle at the center of a long-running conversation about Black beauty marketing: how brands depict natural hair and whether certain textures or styles are framed as problems needing fixes.
For critics, the concern went beyond a misstep in wording. They viewed the “before” and “after” imagery as reinforcing the notion that tightly coiled, less-defined hair must be transformed before it can be regarded as healthy or beautiful.
Mielle’s response acknowledged the concerns, but the online reaction indicates that some consumers want more than a simple apology.
ABS has reached out to Mielle for a statement, but has not yet received a reply.
