Many people don’t think about where shea butter comes from when they glide their favorite shea product onto their skin or hair, but Rahama Wright thinks about it every day. As founder of Shea Yeleen International, the socially conscious leader has made a business out of her passion for helping female shea butter producers.
Growing up in upstate New York, Wright’s Ghanaian heritage influenced her interest in African-related issues. After working and volunteering in West Africa and drawing on her mother’s stories as an immigrant in the United States, Wright committed herself to making the invisible women behind shea butter production visible to the world.
With patience and relentless diligence, she has grown her company—which initially started as a non-profit—with Shea Yeleen soaps, lip balms, and body butters now available in over 40 Whole Food stores in the United States. In between meetings for the growing natural body care brand, Wright stopped to chat with BlackEnterprise.com about her career journey and commitment to women’s empowerment.
BlackEnterprise.com: What inspired you to use shea butter to empower women in West Africa?
Rahama Wright: It wasn’t until I did an internship at the American Embassy in Burkina Faso and started learning about income-generating activities for women in the Sahel region that I learned about shea butter. It struck me that this great product that was in so many mainstream haircare and skincare products came from this part of the world, yet there was a lack of visibility for the women producers in the marketplace.
After my internship, I served in the Peace Corps for two years in Mali, which was my first time living in a rural setting. Seeing a lot of the women in my community unable to send their kids to school or buy food or medicine made me want to do more than just say, ‘I served in the Peace Corps.’ So, I started researching income-generating activities for the women in my community, and shea butter came up again. When I returned to the U.S., I started Shea Yeleen to create a space that allowed market visibility for female shea producers.
Posts published in “Hair & Beauty”
In his first few months as an entrepreneur in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, Tristan Walker dreamed big when it came to startup ideas. There were the seeds he planted for a new kind of bank. There was the idea for a venture aimed at tackling childhood obesity.
But, then, Walker decided his best bet was to found a company that was more “authentic” to him and his experiences. What he came up with was Walker & Company Brands, a next-generation Procter & Gamble with a straightforward, if ambitious, mission: To make health and beauty simple for people of color.
That’s what he told me in an interview on Sunday night about his new company, which has raised $2.4 million led by Los Angeles-based Upfront Ventures, with backing from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Collaborative Fund, Sherpa Ventures and the William Morris agency’s Charles King.
Prior to Andreessen Horowitz, Walker ran business development at Foursquare, where he worked for nearly three years. On the surface, at least, the switch from a social-networking site to a consumer product goods company doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
But when you hear Walker talk about his reason for creating Bevel, a $29.95-a-month shaving kit that is the first brand launching under the Walker & Company umbrella and accepting preorders today, you can understand his motivation.
Kerry Washington is having a banner year – and to add to the distinguished success she has earned, the Hollywood star has now been named the new face of Neutrogena. Washington has been appointed as an official creative consultant for the beauty brand and she will be featured in ads that are expected to run in early 2014. As part of her new venture, the Scandal star will join other famous faces like Gabrielle Union and Jennifer Garner in promoting the brand. However, Washington will be more involved in Neutrogena’s product development and feedback.
“For me, the creative consultant role is also fun because I get to bring my fans on this adventure with me,” Washington said, according to the Huffington Post. “They know that I’m not just telling them that I’m passionate about a product because I have to say that contractually. They know that I have a voice in the company and that I’m discovering and learning more about skin health all the time and giving the company feedback,” she added.
Aside from her latest business partnership, Washington has attracted millions of fans this year after her hit show Scandal has soared in ratings and recently returned to TV with its third season. The actress has also racked headlines for being named the year’s best-dressed woman by both Vanity Fair and People – not to mention the several magazine covers she has graced including Glamour, Elleand Essence.
As for her new deal with Neutrogena, Washington says it’s almost like a perfect fit. “I never wanted to partner with a company where I felt like I was losing myself and my sense of authenticity,” she told People. ”This is really about working with a company I respect and admire.”
article by Lilly Workneh via thegrio.com
When offered the opportunity to interview our favorite childhood friend, Rudy Huxtable from The Cosby Show, we were excited to catch up with the lovable Cosby Kid.
When she’s not auditioning or making sure her body is right and tight, Keisha Knight Pulliam can be found mentoring teenage girls through her non-for-profit summer camp, Kamp Kizzy, or promoting Hairfinity, a hair growth product everyone from Toya Carter to Regina King is raving about.
Known for her flawless skin and unbelievably laid hair, Pulliam shared an important secret with us that many women overlook when determing their health and beauty regimens. Check out what the big secret is in our Q&A below.
Why did you decide to become Hairfinity’s brand ambassador?
I decided to become the brand ambassador for Hairfinity (http://www.hairfinity.com/) because I believe in the product. I would never sell something I didn’t already use. Prior to becoming brand ambassador, I used the product to see how I really felt about it. Since I began using it, there is a huge difference with my hair. It is thicker, longer and it sheds less. Initially I didn’t tell my friends I was using the product and after a while they began to tell me how great my hair looks and that’s how I knew Hairfinity was working.
1. Revive Your Nail Polish: If your polish brush no longer reaches the bottom of the bottle, add a few drops of nail polish remover, shake the bottle and voila, new nail polish. You should also invest in a long thin paintbrush to access those hard to reach last bits of polish before trashing the bottle for good.
2. Maximize Mascara: Is your favorite mascara all dried up? Use a hair dryer to heat it up, or soak the tube in hot water to re-liquify. But remember mascara should be thrown out after three to six months of use to avoid infections.
3. Make Lipstick Last: Scrape the lipstick dregs out of bottom of the tube, place inside of a pill-box, contact lens case or a very small plastic paint palette and microwave for about 10 seconds. Then, put the melted lipstick in the fridge to harden in your new “container.” You might need to use a lipstick brush to apply, but that’s much cheaper than a whole new tube of Chanel.
4. Longer Life Lip Liner: To keep lip and eyeliners moist and firm, store them in the refrigerator between uses.
5. From Powder to Gloss: Take leftover powdered blush (when it’s cracked and you can hardly get it on the brush) and mix with Vaseline for a pink, sparkly nude lip gloss.
2. Maximize Mascara: Is your favorite mascara all dried up? Use a hair dryer to heat it up, or soak the tube in hot water to re-liquify. But remember mascara should be thrown out after three to six months of use to avoid infections.
3. Make Lipstick Last: Scrape the lipstick dregs out of bottom of the tube, place inside of a pill-box, contact lens case or a very small plastic paint palette and microwave for about 10 seconds. Then, put the melted lipstick in the fridge to harden in your new “container.” You might need to use a lipstick brush to apply, but that’s much cheaper than a whole new tube of Chanel.
4. Longer Life Lip Liner: To keep lip and eyeliners moist and firm, store them in the refrigerator between uses.
5. From Powder to Gloss: Take leftover powdered blush (when it’s cracked and you can hardly get it on the brush) and mix with Vaseline for a pink, sparkly nude lip gloss.
Dante de Blasio’s towering Afro, a supporting player in his father’s mayoral campaign, riveted attention once more last week when it caught the eye of President Obama. Introducing Bill de Blasio at a Democratic fund-raiser in Midtown, Mr. Obama digressed to point out, “Dante has the same hairdo as I had in 1978. Although I have to confess my Afro was never that good.”
Nor was it as voluminous, or as apparently devoid of a political charge. As 16-year-old Dante implied in an interview with DNAInfo.com, an online local news source, hair is just hair. “Some people want to take photos and I’m really just happy,” he said. Others want to reach out and touch it, and some did at last week’s fund-raiser, their enthusiastic petting prompting the elder de Blasio to joke that he might have to call security.
The mayoral candidate was doubtless aware that Dante’s outsize hair placed him in a league with a current generation that has adopted what once was a badge of revolt as an emblem of style’s cutting edge. Resurgent in films and television and the streets, inspired by a galaxy of pop culture idols, the Afro today seems friendly enough, even downright disarming — a kinder, gentler “natural” pretty much shorn of its militancy.
Images like those of Halle Berry’s tightly coiled halo or Nicki Minaj’s poodly pink Glamfro on the cover of Allure last year have played a part in resurrecting the hallmark style. Hoping to stand apart from her more famous sister, Solange Knowles last year chopped her chemically processed hair to reveal the wedge-shaped Afro that has since become her signature. And the actress Viola Davis showed off her natural curls at the Oscar ceremonies a year ago after walking most of the red carpet season in a wig; Prince poses regally in his Afro on the August issue of V magazine.
Even the customarily conventional Oprah Winfrey stepped out to front the September issue of O, the Oprah magazine, in a 3.5-pound wig that spanned its cover nearly edge to edge above the cover line: “Let’s talk about HAIR!”
The style’s current iteration bears little kinship to the anti-gravity hair flaunted in the late 1960s by Angela Davis, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver and other icons of the Black Power movement. “In the ’60s the Afro was looked upon as ‘Wow, you’re stepping out there, you’re really going against the grain,’ ” said Andre Walker, the man who fluffed Ms. Winfrey’s wig into its umbrella-size proportions. In contrast, “When I talk to a lot of the kids from this generation,” he said, “the whole civil rights movement, it’s very vague to them.
“I don’t think they really know the meaning of how radical an Afro was in the day,” Mr. Walker added. “It’s a different time now.”
Though his father wore an Afro in the 1970s and ’80s, 16-year-old Noah Negron, a high school senior in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was not bowing to family tradition or the politics of a bygone era when he decided to grow out his hair. “I’m an environmentalist,” he said. “That’s where the locks come in. It’s like all natural.”
Reluctant to treat her hair with potentially damaging lye, another Brooklyn resident who identified herself only as Tamar A., declared: “This is just how my hair grows out of my head. I’m not trying to make a statement. I’m just more comfortable being who I am.”
Who needs a Barbie when you can get a customized doll with your favorite natural hair style? Karen Byrd started the The Natural Girls United! project to showcase the positive view of ethnic beauty.
There have been quite a few studies done that show that African-American boys and girls often think of black dolls as bad and white dolls as good. Of course, this is not something that the parent is teaching their child. So why are they getting these mixed messages about good and bad skin color, or good and bad hair? It all has to do with the images they see as they grow up. If a child is constantly looking at images, dolls, television, books and magazines – and only seeing beauty as something or someone with non-ethnic features and long, straight hair – then they are going to assume that this is what beauty is. It is something that has hurt our young people for centuries.
The Natural Girls United! come in a variety of styles. There’s dolls in dreadlocks, kinky twists, as well as short-cropped afros. Not to be left out, there’s even a male doll with dreadlocks. The prices range from $45.00-$140.00. For more information on the dolls, check out the site www.naturalgirlsunited.com or follow Natural Girls United on Twitter and Natural Girls United on Facebook.
article by Yesha Callahan via clutchmagonline.com
The University of Cambridge is staging a mayor exhibition exploring the 6,000-year history of the afro comb and the politics of black hair. The fascinating display charts the inception of the comb in Ancient Egypt through to its ascendancy as a political emblem post-1960s.
“What we know from the early hair combs is they were connected to status, group affiliation, cultural and religious beliefs,” says curator Sally-Ann Ashton. “In more recent times, the ‘black fist’ comb that references the black power salute has wider political connotations.”
The material is being showcased at 2 university sites: The Fitzwilliam Museum, and alongside life-size installations created by artist Dr. Michael McMillan at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA). Items on display at Fitzwilliam include hundreds of combs from pre-dynastic Egypt to contemporary picks. Some interesting artifacts include a 5,500-year-old comb from Southern Egypt and the original black fist comb, which was patented in 1976 in America.
The idea behind the exhibition was to take a fresh look at Egyptology within the parameters Africa in all its diversity, rich heritage, and culture, says Ashton. Interestingly, she says the earliest combs in the collection are from Egypt and this alongside her scholarly research has left her with no doubt that ancient Egyptians were racially and culturally black African.
“People do not want to admit or believe that these early civilizations were non-European but they were,” says Ashton. Associated material includes paintings, sculpture and images showing the variety and complexity of hair styles found in Africa and on the Diaspora.
What does your hair mean to you? For some of us it’s important enough; but for Asha Mandela, the woman with the world’s longest dredlocks, her hair is life itself. Mandela, 50, began growing her locks out 25 years ago in spiritual quest to change her life. Initially, her family didn’t support her decision but in 2009 when she earned the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest dredlocks and started gaining notoriety, they warmed up to the idea. (Ain’t that the way it goes.)
Since 2009, her hair has gotten even more impressive. Today it’s 55 feet long and weighs 42 pounds. When she goes out in the street Asha has to wear a baby sling on her back just to carry it all. Being the black Rapunzel might sound like a cool title, but having this much hair comes with its drawbacks. Health side effects actually. Doctors have advised Mandela to cut her hair because it has already lead to a curvature in her spine and could lead to neck spasms in the future.
But cutting it is not an option. Mandela says she and her hair are connected now– not just by the root, but spiritually. She credits the growth of her locks for helping her to overcome cancer, two strokes and two heart attacks. In fact she says, “If I ever gut my hair, I’d really be taking away my life.” So instead, of taking a pair of scissors to her hair, Mandela is going to keep living the life she’s adapted and grown accustomed to, which includes washes once a week, (which can take up to two days to dry), and that baby sling.
Check out Asha and her hair in the video below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuwCmXh4CD8&w=420&h=315]
article by Veronica Wells via madamenoire.com
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmd7V0dqL64&w=560&h=315]
CAUSE: Well aware of the simple pleasure that a manicure brings, Alanna Wall decided to go into hospitals and treat girls with special needs to a beauty pick-me-up. What started as a bonding experience for local teenage girls has grown into a national non-profit. Now, youth volunteers across the country are giving manicures in hospitals, Down syndrome associations, and children’s medical centers.
Beyond painting the latest nail art trends, Alanna and her team also teach girls with special needs about how hand washing can reduce the spread of infection.EFFECT: Polished Girlz has expanded to four states and served 600 girls this year. Alanna has expanded her brand by starting a line of Polish Girlz nail gloss.
GET INVOLVED: Go to PolishedGirlz.org to learn more about the non-profit.
article by Sierra Tishgart via teenvogue.com