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Call Off Christmas: Fenty Beauty’s Taking All Our Money
Today in breaking “Can’t stop, won’t stop” news: Fenty Beauty is bound to break our holiday budgets with the upcoming release of a 14-shade line of lipsticks, coyly called “Mattemoiselle.” In keeping with Fenty’s full-spectrum-themed beauty, the colors range from conventional to conversation-starting, and because she’s never afraid to start—or shut down—a conversation, Rihanna teased…
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The Glow Up Gaze: Mama Cax Is Redefining the Runway
When you meet model, blogger and advocate Mama Cax—Cax, for short—you’re not sure where to look first: at her gleaming brown skin and bald head, her sculpted features, whatever ridiculously sick ensemble she’s put together just to tool around town or her equally stylized prosthetic leg cover (one of 15 she owns)—a latticework of metal…
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Glow-Getter: Santana Caress Benitez Cooks Like Your Mother … and May Just Steal the Scene
Chef Santana Caress Benitez doesn’t call herself an actress. This, despite her appearance as Lourdes “LuLu” Blackmon in Netflix’s recent series reboot of Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It; a scene-stealing supporting role that has literally sent Hollywood calling (as evidenced by the feature-film audition she’d sent off just prior to our conversation). Personally asked…
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Be Aware: Your Favorite Beauty Secret May Be More Trouble Than It’s Worth
We’re not quite sure when the buzz began about biotin, but suddenly, it seemed, every woman we knew was taking the vitamin—also called B7 or vitamin H—to support hair and nail growth. And indeed, while research is sparse, at least one double-blind study concluded that Viviscal, a supplement containing biotin, not only supported hair growth…
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Home for the Holidays? AphroChic Has Your Guide to Last-Minute Decorating
Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason, better known as husband-and-wife interior design team AphroChic, are experts in making a house feel like home. Prior to building their 10-year-old blog-turned-brand, the two moved across the country together and back, making homes in Philly and San Francisco, before finally settling in their beloved adopted hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y.…
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The Complicated Business of Giving Birth: Motherhood and Mortality
Here’s a not-so-fun and very frightening fact: Did you know that the U.S. has the highest rate of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth in the developed world, indiscriminately affecting women across races, backgrounds, educations and income levels? Did you know that over half of those deaths are preventable? And, if that news isn’t disturbing…
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Pretty Hurts: The Insidious Side of Insta-Beauty
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Self-proclaimed “makeup enthusiast” and Instagram beauty Victoria Katei (@vicxkat) learned this the hard way when she was brave enough to get real with her over-50,000 followers, showing herself with and without makeup. The comments weren’t universally kind—not by a long shot. Commenters accused Victoria of “catfishing”…
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Because Being a Woman Isn’t Scary Enough: Now Your Birth Control Could Cause Breast Cancer
Have breasts? Trying not to get pregnant? A new study from Denmark has revealed that hormonal birth control of all types can raise your risk of developing breast cancer, which is frightening news to the legions of women who choose these methods to prevent conception. This new research expanded beyond high-dose birth control pills studied…
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She’s Your Queen-to-Be: @Krissychula Stays Saying What We’re All Thinking
Fun fact—or, in this case, funny fact, for a beauty vertical: I first fell for YouTuber @krissychula on a bad hair day in 2012. It was a really bad hair day, to hear her tell it: Since being “pissed off” at her hair (and who here can’t relate?), @krissychula, also known as Krystal, has elevated…
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The Purple One Would Approve: Pantone Finally Gets It Right With 2018’s Color of the Year
Full disclosure: I’m a Minnesota native. Minneapolis, to be exact. I’m also a black woman, and a musician who counts among her first musical memories seeing the Purple Rain tour live at the Humphrey dome in 1984. Suffice to say, last year I didn’t take Prince’s passing well … But while it may feel a…
