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Cosmetics giant L'Oral purchased Carol's Daughter, a beauty company that sells natural hair and skin products for black women, earlier this week. It may seem like an unlikely chapter in the story of a business that began in a Brooklyn kitchen.

That story began in 1993, when Lisa Price began blending body butters, oils and natural fragrances in her Brooklyn home. At her mother's urging, Price brought the goods to craft fairs and began to sell them. Those products sold well and did even better when she added hair care for black women who, like her, wore their hair in its natural, unstraightened state.

Two decades later, that kitchen-born brand has a devoted following among African-American women. Carol's Daughter items now sit on shelves at Target, Sephora and Ulta and are sometimes sold on the Home Shopping Network. At one point, Price even expanded to seven brick-and-mortar boutiques, where customers could get advice and demonstrations on how to use the products. Carol's Daughter earned an estimated $27 million in sales last year and claims celebrity fans including Jada Pinkett Smith, Gabrielle Union and Mary J. Blige.

A Beloved Brand, A Troubled Business

Somewhere between 2010 and 2011, Carol's Daughter began to struggle. Sales were down in the boutiques, and a passel of competitors also began to flourish by servicing the burgeoning natural hair care market. According to BusinessWeek, Price eventually sold to Pegasus Capital Advisors, although she remained the face of the company.

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Still, store sales faltered. In May, five of the seven boutiques were closed and Carol's Daughter Stores LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Fans worried that their favorite products would disappear.

Then on Monday, company founder Lisa Price posted a video that quickly got passed around on Facebook.

In it, she explained that Carol's Daughter would be "joining the L'Oral family." Price said the French cosmetics giant would "take what I built and solidify its place in history and beauty and I don't have to wonder if in 20 years from now, 30 years, from now, if there'll still be a Carol's Daughter brand." In a statement, a L'Oral spokesperson said that "Lisa Price will remain in her role, serving as the creative visionary and spokesperson for the brand and will continue to lead product development."

Will Customers Follow Carol's Daughter?

Even if the Carol's Daughter brand moves forward, some wonder if the customers will follow, since it's no longer a black-owned business. Noliwe Rooks, a professor at Cornell University specializing in black women and image and gender issues, says the intense interest in the future of Carol's Daughter comes from customers' deep emotional attachment to the brand — and that the attachment begins with Price.

"Her love for that community, and love for black women and economic possibility for black people is as much a part of her creation story and her narrative as whatever her products would do for your hair," Rooks says.

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Lisa Price, the founder of Carol's Daughter, at its pop-up store in New Orleans in 2011. Johnny Nunez/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Johnny Nunez/Getty Images

Lisa Price, the founder of Carol's Daughter, at its pop-up store in New Orleans in 2011.

Johnny Nunez/Getty Images

Rooks points out that Price founded Carol's Daughter at a time when many black women were starting to wear their hair in its natural state, and many had difficulty finding products that would work for their hair's unique texture.

Now there are several beauty bloggers posting how-to videos using homemade products that mimic Carol's Daughter. Hair care companies like Mixed Chicks and Miss Jessie's, both founded by biracial women, serve curly-haired women of all ethnicities. Carol's Daughter has also vied for customers outside the black community, leaving some of the company's early fans feeling alienated.

A blogger who goes by the name Honey Bii noted one Carol's Daughter ad campaign that featured several racially ambiguous women — as opposed to the African-American ones who helped to launch the brand.

"I'm not fair-complected," Honey Bii says, "and by no means do I feel that they [the ads] have to have this Afro-centric feel to it. But I feel like she sold us out." The thinking was that, in reaching for a broader demographic, Price was overlooking her original base.

"She really was, specifically, aiming at black women, who have a variety of hair textures," Rooks says. "But I'm not sure that's a niche that's as lucrative today." Hence the multicultural approach.

Ken Smikle, president of Chicago-based Target Market News, which monitors black consumer patterns, says the sale of Carol's Daughter to L'Oral makes sense: "Cosmetics is tough," he notes, "and it would be more logical for a company already engaged in the market to want to make a purchase and extend their ability to serve black customers."

L'Oral has a mixed track record with that.

Missteps In The African-American Market

On one hand, in 1998, L'Oral bought the "SoftSheen" line from Carson Products, a black-owned hair care firm, and it has maintained the line without a problem. On the other, in 2008, it featured Beyonce Knowles in its Feria hair color ads — and endured a storm of outrage on black social media sites. Bloggers were convinced the company had lightened Knowles' skin to appeal to a more mainstream aesthetic. L'Oral emphatically denied that, saying in a statement that "it is categorically untrue that L'Oral Paris altered Ms. Knowles' features or skin tone." But suspicion continued.

Smikle says L'Oral will have to master its learning curve as it reaches out to new customers, but — to paraphrase the company's motto — it'll be worth it. There are women of color here and beyond the U.S. who are just waiting for cosmetics made with them in mind.

"This is a good deal," Smikle asserts. "It's a good deal for the industry and it's certainly a good deal for those who are loyal customers of Carol's Daughter."

And probably a good deal for Lisa Price, who, L'Oral says, will still have a role in the company. Now the brand that she started in her kitchen will reach women around the world, and her products will be on shelves for a long time to come.

Correction Oct. 24, 2014

A previous Web version of this story incorrectly said that Carol's Daughter filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It was actually Carol's Daughter Stores LLC that filed.

Reynolds American, the country's second-largest cigarette-maker, is changing its policy on smoking in the office. Until now, Reynolds employees have been able to light up at their desks, but come January, workers will have to either go outside or use specially equipped smoking rooms.

"We allowed smoking of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, traditional tobacco products throughout our facilities," says David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds American. He says it's not as though his co-workers chain-smoke at work.

Smoking in the workplace is still legally permitted in some parts of the country, including in Reynolds' home state of North Carolina. But on Wednesday, as the Associated Press first reported, Reynolds said it would build designated smoking areas and prohibit smoking everywhere else.

E-cigarettes and smokeless products like snuff will still be allowed. But Howard says the policy will apply to all its subsidiaries. He says the company made the change to adapt to the times.

"Indoor smoking restrictions certainly are the norm today and most people expect a smoke-free business environment," Howard says.

Cynthia Hallett, executive director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, says she finds the new policy "ironic."

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"Reynolds and other tobacco companies have been the leading opponents to the passage of these smoke-free-workplace laws at the state and local level," she says.

And yet here the company seems to be acknowledging that there is damage from secondhand smoke to its own workers. But Hallett isn't appeased.

"This feels like a lovely PR stunt by Reynolds to say, 'Oh, we're trying to come up to modern times and offer a smoke-free workplace to our employees,' when in fact, it's not 100 percent smoke-free," she says.

Hallett says smoke escapes from designated smoking areas, and e-cigarettes emit harmful chemicals and compounds as well.

Reynolds says its new policy will start taking effect on Jan. 1.

Reynolds American

smoking

The anger of Illinois Republican state Rep. Mike Bost is spontaneous and raw.

In 2013, for example, he raged against a floor amendment to a concealed carry gun bill.

"Once again, your side of the aisle is trying to make ploys instead of dealing with the real issue!" a YouTube video shows him bellowing. "Keep playing games," he says. "Keep playing games."

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Now, Bost is running for a seat in Congress against first-term Rep. Bill Enyart, a retired general and Democrat, and Bost's anger has become a campaign issue.

Voters in the 12th Congressional District in southern Illinois are hearing a lot of another Bost rant, a furious harangue from 2012 about language inserted into a pension reform bill on the final day of the House session.

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"Enough! I feel like somebody trying to be released from Egypt! Let my people go!" he hollers. "These damn bills that come out of here all the damn time come out here at the last second and I've got to try figure out how to vote for my people!"

The video of those remarks went viral that year. In it, Bost is seen throwing the bill into the air. He whiffs at the pages as they fall, then picks up the papers and throws them again.

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Enyart is running ads that point to Bost's rant as proof that he doesn't belong in Congress. Using footage of the lawmaker's outbursts, the announcer says, "Mike Bost. Twenty years yelling. Twenty years being the problem."

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Bost has represented small towns in rural, conservative southern Illinois for nearly two decades. Many voters here see his fury as well-placed.

"I think this was appropriate," says Bost supporter Jill Bunyan of Bost's pension rant. "You can get angry, and that's OK. And I think at that time, for that few moments, that was an appropriate response."

Bunyan lives in the tiny town of Cobden, in southernmost Illinois, population 1,100. People in Bunyan's part of the district, which hugs the Mississippi River, are frustrated with the state's fiscal troubles and weak local economy.

But head north to some of the district's larger cities, like Belleville, population 44,000, and Bost's anger is embraced less and criticized more. Interviewed on Main Street, Richard Rockwell thinks "the rant" is all political theater.

"I'm hoping that's the reason, and not that he's acting the fool in a deliberative chamber," Rockwell says. "That would be rather disconcerting to me."

Bost, in his own ad, refers to a video of the rant and embraces it. He half smiles and explains in folksy fashion that he's angry about the direction his opponents are taking the country.

"What the Chicago politicians and Gov. Quinn have done really made me mad," Bost says. "And what Bill Enyart and President Obama are doing to our country upsets me as well."

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On the power dynamic between a photographer and his or her subject

Just as there is a power structure between the novelist and the subject the novelist is writing about — it's the novelist who decides who gets the power of speech. So, whoever puts their finger on the button that ultimately decides what happens with the camera is the one who has the power. And anyone sitting outside of that power zone is turned into a subject. So, I could see parallel between the novelist's writing, and therefore, deciding, ultimately, the destiny of his or her characters — in the same way that the photographer decides what position to take, what light to use.

On whether he could live in Somalia

Mogadishu has stopped being a cosmopolitan city; it was a cosmopolitan city many years ago — one of the most celebrated cosmopolitan cities. I can imagine living in Somalia, but Somalia has to change. I have changed and therefore Somalia must change. And that would be the case if: one, there was peace. Two, if I could live anonymously — which is not possible all the time, but it could be. And then, [three], if there are book shops and cultural stuff that one can do and get involved in. There is no such thing now. Civil war dominates everything in one's everyday life in Somalia, which is quite tragic.

Read an excerpt of Hiding in Plain Sight

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