Protesters in South Africa have forced the closure of a sum of stores of a health and beauty company over advertisements that they deem racist.

The company, Click, run an advertisement that described African hair as dry, dull and damaged, whereas the sample of white hair was labelled fine and flat.

Leader of the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema called for all Click stores to be closed.

"The implications of this are that black identity exists as inferior to the identity of white people. It is an assertion that white standards of beauty are to be aspired to and features of black represent damage, decay and abnormality” the EFF said I a statement.

CEO of the company, Vikesh Ramsunder in a statement on Sunday, September 6^th expressed remorse and apologised to South Africans for the misrepresentation.

"[I am] deeply disappointed that we allowed insensitive and offensive images to be published on our website" he said.

Mr Ramsunder added that the “negligent employees” have been suspended and the online video taken down.

His apologies have however not sufficed, as reports show several residents vandalising stores belonging to the company today Monday, 7^th September 2020.

Click has countered the protests with threatened legal action against the political party. But Mr Malema further urged his supporters to be “combat ready”.

The party members undertook similar protests in 2018 against clothing retailer H&M over a publication where a black boy appeared in a hoodie with the slogan “coolest monkey in the jungle”.