Followers who visit our main web page instead of just our feeds may have already noticed that in the past few days, Good Black News has updated and refreshed its look for 2013. For those who haven’t, this is our official announcement not only of our new look, but also the new talent we’ve brought aboard to help bring you more and varied Good Black News. Lesa Lakin has been a contributor to GBN on and off throughout the years, but has only recently had the time to help build and organize our new Lifestyle Section, consisting of Fashion, Food, Travel, Health, Fitness, Home, Hair and Beauty-related news. In the short time she’s been working behind the scenes, Lesa has already helped triple our number of Pinterest followers, which inspired us to broaden our definition of Good Black News to include items on the topics above on a regular basis.
If you want to learn more about Lesa, check out her bio on our About the Editors page, and if you like our new Lifestyle Section, please let us know! Onward and Upward, together.
Lori Lakin Hutcherson, Founder and Editor-In-Chief, Good Black News
Posts published in “Lifestyle”
Halle Berry, Gabrielle Union, Kelly Rowland, and Kerry Washington are featured in the 2013 People magazine ‘Most Beautiful’ issue. (Photos: Getty Images)
People magazine released details on its annual “Most Beautiful” issue, which featured Beyonce on the cover last year. This year, the ever-esteemed title goes to actress and mother of two, Gwyneth Paltrow.
The issue also features such beauties as Kerry Washington, Kelly Rowland, Halle Berry and Gabrielle Union. Halle, Kerry and Kelly win the distinction of being on the list of the 10 most beautiful people in the world according to People magazine, in the eighth, second and seventh spot respectively. It’s Kelly Rowland’s first time appearing in the issue, and Halle Berry once napped the top spot with a cover.
Read the rest of this story on Clutch Magazine.
Author, journalist, former Uptown Magazine editor and founder of SimplyRides.com, SékouWrites, has expanded his automotive-lifestyle business with the launch of BumperCandy.com, a multicultural women’s-interest website featuring beautiful cars and the lifestyle that comes with owning them. BumperCandy.com joins SimplyRides.com under the banner of Sékou’s newly created Dubbnet Networks, an assortment of automotive lifestyle websites tailored to audiences with unique interests.
“Ironically, my childhood career goal was to be a car designer,” says Sékou about his new-found path. “Later, when I was the Managing Editor of Uptown Magazine, I edited the car section to reach an audience of folks who are interested in cars but aren’t very interested in what’s under the hood. Once I started writing the car section myself, several women told me that they liked the way I covered automotive and I realized there was a niche for readers who care about the aesthetics and lifestyle associated with automobiles but don’t like to get bogged down by car jargon.”
If you want good beer, sometimes you just have to brew it yourself. That’s just what Garrett Oliver does as the brewing chief of one of the most renowned microbrewery firms in America.
The brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, Oliver is known for his unique approach to creating flavorful beer, and is sought out as a lecturer on the subject. Also known as the world’s leading beer scholar, his book, The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food, can help eager beer enthusiasts learn more about his area of expertise from the comfort of home.
To get a taste of his wisdom right away, read on as Garrett Oliver spills his secrets and tells us all we ever wanted to know about beer, but were afraid to ask.
Garrett, let’s start at the beginning: You are a graduate of Boston University, where you received a degree in Broadcasting and Film. How did you become a brewmaster? That must have been an interesting path.
In my senior year at Boston University I ran all student entertainment for the school, including clubs and some pretty big concerts. After I graduated, I moved to London, where I ran the concert hall for the University of London. At the same time, of course, I was going to the pub with friends. I fell in love with pubs, but the big surprise was the beer. It wasn’t very strong, but it was dark, rich, complex and flavorful. After a year in London I traveled around Europe and tasted all sorts of beer I’d never heard of before. And then I arrived back to the United States and discovered something awful – we didn’t really have any beer. All we had was a sort of “beer facsimile” that bore the same relationship to beer that “American cheese” slices bear to real cheese. So I started brewing beer at home, not because I was interested in making beer, but in order to HAVE some beer.
Eventually I went to work in 1989 at a pioneering brewpub called Manhattan Brewing Company, which was in Soho. I apprenticed to a British brewmaster and learned the professional side of brewing. From there I went to Brooklyn Brewery in 1994, and in 1996 we opened the brewery in its current site.
Black women with various hairstyles. © BasheeraDesigns – Fotolia.com
Women of color – particularly black women – are bombarded with mixed-messages about our hair. A divide between natural and relaxed coifs have recently emerged. Natural and relaxed women use different beauticians, peruse different websites, and adhere to different hair regimens. Madame You, a new social networking site for women of color to “connect with hair gurus and each other” aims to bridge the divide by providing a platform for all women to tackle hair issues and bond over hair successes.
Madame You spoke with Clutch about the inspiration for the social network and offered advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Q: What inspired the creation of a social networking site for black women’s hair?
A: MadameYou.com is powered by Techturized; a hair technology company that was birthed from a combination of frustrations with inadequate hair care solutions on the web. All of the co-founders have experienced issues that most women face! These issues vary from inability to find and purchase the right products for their hair type, to not knowing how to find a stylist in their area that caters to her hair type. Although some of this information is currently available on line, we wanted to have a space where women can find everything they need in one place. We are using our backgrounds in computer science and chemical engineering to revolutionize the way women interact with their hair!
Q: How did you bring the idea from concept through fruition?
A: By really understanding our consumer’s pains we were able to create a product that our consumers truly needed. We have interacted with thousands of women at hair shows and meetups across the country and the common denominator of all our interactions was wanting styles and products that worked for their unique hair properties. Now our concept has evolved into a real solution for Black women, which is MadameYou.com. Madame You is the only social network for hair and beauty that combines science and technology to provide recommendations for women to make better hair decisions.
Read the rest of this story on Clutch Magazine.