ChatGPT · measured July 2026
The ChatGPT Shelf for Curly & Textured Hair
Mielle leads a deep shelf
Mielle takes 47% and SheaMoisture 41%, with PATTERN and Curlsmith tied behind at 27%. 168 brands showed up. Only 42 offers out of 3,972 came direct from a brand's own store — 1% — the thinnest brand-direct lane of the eight categories.
- Questions asked
- 635
- Brands seen
- 168
- Offers recorded
- 3,972
- Through a feed
- 83%
Who ChatGPT names
Share of shelf is the percentage of answers a brand appeared in. It is not a rank of quality or sales — it is how often the model brought the brand up when someone asked about textured & curly hair.
- 1 Mielle 47%
- 2 SheaMoisture 41%
- 3 PATTERN 27%
- 4 Curlsmith 27%
- 5 Not Your Mother's 26%
- 6 Ouidad 23%
- 7 Cantu 16%
- 8 As I Am 16%
Where the offers come from
Every product ChatGPT showed came from somewhere. Brand-direct means the offer pointed at the brand's own store rather than a retailer.
- Ulta 35% · 1,139 offers
- Walmart 27% · 902 offers
- Sephora 15% · 484 offers
- Target 12% · 394 offers
- CVS 8% · 253 offers
- Brand-direct 1% · 42 offers
How the shelf gets built
83% of the offers here arrived through a product feed rather than a page crawl, and 42 of them came direct from a brand.
| Shelf position | Offers | Through a feed | Brand named |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top of shelf | 1,743 | 82% | 80% |
| Positions 2–3 | 1,568 | 84% | 83% |
| Position 4 and below | 661 | 82% | 82% |
Who writes this shelf
Before ChatGPT names a textured & curly hair brand, it reads. These are the sources it cited most when building this shelf.
- allure.com 688 citations
- reddit.com 520 citations
- glamour.com 498 citations
- goodhousekeeping.com 399 citations
- marieclaire.com 339 citations
- beautycon.com 266 citations
How we measured this
- We asked ChatGPT 635 shopping questions about textured & curly hair in July 2026. The questions never named a brand, so nothing here was prompted into the answer.
- Questions were repeated. ChatGPT does not answer the same way twice, so a single ask tells you nothing — share of shelf is the pattern across all 635 of them.
- We recorded every brand mentioned and every product offer shown, 3,972 offers across 168 brands.
- This is one engine, one country, one point in time. It is a snapshot of a shelf that moves.
Questions about the method, or think a number is wrong? Tell us — we will check it against the raw data and correct the page.
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We run the same measurement on any product category, and on your brand specifically — where you show up, who shows up instead, and what is missing from your feed.
Get your free AI shopping planOther shelves we measured
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- Deodorant Native ties Dove
- Dog Supplements Two DTC brands beat the legacy names
- Drugstore Color Cosmetics e.l.f. is in nearly 8 of every 10 answers
- Electrolyte & Hydration Powders The biggest brand does not win
- Fragrance Dupes Dossier is the category
- Lashes & Beauty Tools KISS and Ardell are a coin flip
- Laundry Detergent Tide runs away with it
- Olive Oil The names you know aren't the ones ChatGPT names
- Protein Powder Two points separate first and second
- Sunscreen Blue Lizard outranks Neutrogena
- Toothpaste Colgate edges Crest, then a wall
- Vitamin C Serums CeraVe leads on an affordability question