Five hair brands that have never been sold to a conglomerate, checked live on one day: who owns them, what size they come in, and the per-ounce number that actually decides it.

Then the part nobody puts in these videos. On the same Target page, on the same day, the leave-in owned by Procter and Gamble was cheaper per ounce than the independent creams sitting next to it. Not by a little.

This is a buying guide, not a lecture. Everything here is ownership, price and size. Nothing here is a claim about what any product does to your hair.

THE FIVE (owner on the record):

• Kinky-Curly — founder Shelley Davis spoke on the record as the owner in a September 2012 interview, and the brand’s own site carries no ownership statement at all. We do not assert ownership we cannot show you. The silence is its own fact.

• OBIA Naturals — launched in 2012 by Obia Ewah, a trained chemist with degrees in both chemistry and biology and a member of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. The brand does not publish the size on its own product page; six independent retailers list that exact bottle at eight ounces, which is how we priced it.

• Taliah Waajid — she opened a salon in Harlem and built a product line out of it. Her own about page says the business is “mostly family operated,” and mostly is the word we kept. Her small jar costs MORE per ounce than her big one. She also owns Uncle Jimmy Products and founded the World Natural Hair Show.

• Tropic Isle Living — the site names Michael Anthony Hin