Miss Jessie's hits the retail bullseye and makes products available in Target stores.

Branded as the “Best darn products. Period.”, Miss Jessie’s products have had natural hair wearers nationwide singing their praises for how wonderfully they work in styling and maintaining kinky, coily and curly hair in its natural state. Well on Sunday, March 28th, 2010 Miss Jessie’s lovers will have more cause to celebrate when over 200 select Target locations throughout the country begin stocking their shelves with the beloved hair care brand. Hair and Beauty Blogs Netwide have been abuzz with the news for weeks, and the official pronouncement has inspired a shower of excited comments on Miss Jessie’s Facebook Page, and prompted the opening of an Official Fan Page on the site which is bursting at the seams with over six hundred members. “I can hardly wait,” announces one fan comment while another exclaims “I’m so excited!!!!!” slightly above it.

Created in 2004 by sisters Titi and Miko Branch, Miss Jesse’s products were first used exclusively in their New York salon as a means to aid in the manageability of styling textured tresses. Being born of African-American and Japanese ancestry, the Branch sisters know firsthand the challenges most hair care products fail to meet when dealing with coiled hair and committed to providing styling, cleansing and conditioning implements with those challenges in mind.

“We noticed there were not a lot of products that catered to our texture of hair; extremely dry, curly, thick kinky and wavy hair,” explains Titi in a 2008 interview with Getemgirls.com. “We experimented in our salon with different products and realized there really was a nitch and an opening for products for hair types like ours."

Demand for the products soon grew to nationwide proportions so Titi and Miko began offering their products through their company Website. Such exclusivity limited the availability of Miss Jessie’s products left many natural hair wears unaware of the brand’s existence, so this present distribution agreement with Target will be the first time many naturals have to try the products on for size.

While a whole host of natural hair wearers are rejoicing about the convenient availability of their favorite hair care mainstays, many express a concern that mainstream distribution will cause the current ingredient list used in Miss Jessie’s products will change in order to increase their shelf life. A similar fear rocked the natural hair care world when Carol’s Daughter, the creation of fellow New Yorker and hair care business owner Lisa Price, was made available through Sephora and Macy’s. A notable save for those concerned is Miss Jessie’s products have been formulated for consignment placement in select salons and “professional-only beauty supply stores” for a number of years now, as stated by Titi in a 2007 Beauty Store Business interview with Inga Hansen. So chances are very good that the formula used to create Miss Jessie’s line now is the very same one that will be offered in Target.

Here in Columbus, only three Target locations have been designated for Miss Jessie’s product distribution. These locations are as follows:

COLUMBUS NORTHEAST
4199 Morse Xing
Columbus OH 43219
(614) 471-2154

WHITEHALL
3955 E Broad St Whitehall OH 43213
(614) 236-1409

REYNOLDSBURG
2437 Taylor Park Dr
Reynoldsburg OH 43068
(614) 655-5001

Two additional locations in Cinncinatti and Cleveland will also offer products for local naturals looking to acquire Miss Jessie’s products while out of town. A complete list of Target locations can be found on the Miss Jessie’s Website through their Target store locator.

Currently only nine items out of Miss Jessie’s fifteen item product line will be offered at each Target location, including its popular Curly Pudding, Baby Buttercreme, Stretch Strengthening Cream and Crème De La Curl Cleansing Cream. Pricing remains the same as it is listed on the company’s Website, minus shipping and handling, and presently it is not known if more of the line will be offered in the future via the discount retail chain or what the exact each store’s monthly inventory will be.

In the event you find your local Target sold out of any of offered items, or is you can’t find just the right fit for your hair in what’s on the shelves, the full product line will still be available through the Miss Jessie’s Website and Amazon.com.