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  • The Hair Hits the Tour: Behind the Velvet Rope With Cassidy Blaine

    “I’m like—that’s Janet Jackson! I do the cabbage patch and everything every time I see her!” So says Cassidy Blaine, who’s been turning out sick-ass hairstyles for Miss Jackson (if you’re nasty) and her touring crew for the last decade. And we can’t blame her; Jackson is indisputably an icon. You know it, and we…

    By

    Veronica Webb

    Published

  • The Village: Behind Every Issa Rae Is a Felicia Leatherwood Slaying Her Natural Tresses

    If you have eyes and working salivary glands, chances are you’ve drooled over Issa Rae’s many natural hairstyles, in everything from Insecure to CoverGirl ads. “With Issa, she just lets me create,” says the self-proclaimed natural-hair whisperer herself: Felicia Leatherwood. “She just, she’s like my beautiful black Barbie because she sits there and she trusts…

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    Danielle Young

    Published

  • Because Beard Game Does Matter: Get Him Groomed for the Holidays With Camara Aunique

    (Hey, boo … just thought we’d kick this off with a little #BeardGang love.) Just in time to help us with our holiday shopping, The Glow Up had the pleasure of an office visit from celebrity makeup artist Camara Aunique, who’s responsible for the always flawless face game of Insecure’s Yvonne Orji, among others. Needless…

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    Maiysha Kai

    Published

  • Get Twisted and Braided in Harlem 

    The numbers don’t lie: 71 percent of black Americans wore a natural hairstyle at least once in 2016. To find out more about protective styles and the amazing practitioners behind them, I took a journey up to 125th Street in Harlem, the international mecca for the natural-hair movement that’s taking black Americans of all ages…

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    Veronica Webb

    Published

  • Celebrating Ourselves: A Toast to #TeamNatural

    The year 2017 was a good year for black hair. Solange did the absolute most, impressing us with African-inspired avant-garde hairstyles. Then there was Erykah Badu—aka “Sara Bellum,” aka “Fat Belly Bella,” aka “Medulla Oblongata,” aka “Low Down Loretta Brown,” aka “Analogue Girl in a Digital World”—who pushed all the way through in what she…

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    Ida Harris

    Published

  • For Colored Girls Who Have Considered the Barbershop When the Beauty Salon Was Tew Much

    With the rise of the natural-hair movement, women choosing to wear their hair closely cropped and the growing variety of natural hairstyles, black women are beginning to consider the neighborhood barbershop a viable option. Along with the black church, the lady who sells “plates” out of her kitchen and the neighborhood Food and Drug Administration-unapproved…

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    Michael Harriot

    Published

  • 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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    Maiysha Kai

    Published

  • Surviving a Breakup: What I’ve Missed Since Going Natural

    Sometimes I look at my Afro and still can’t believe that less than two years ago, I underwent “the big chop,” after which my hair basically looked like a fuzzy tennis ball. Now my hair is a few inches past my shoulders and longer and thicker than it ever was when it was relaxed. I…

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    Kyla Jenee Lacey

    Published

  • Is #TeamNatural Ready to Go Coed? 9 Natural-Hair ‘Guy-rus’ Who Might Teach You a Few Things

    While I was talking wash-day routines with some of my natural friends, we found ourselves scrolling through a seemingly endless list of natural-hair gurus giving all types of product suggestions, protective-style techniques and hacks for maintaining healthy hair. After clicking on about the 12th video geared toward women and our natural-hair needs, our guy friend…

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    Shayna Watson

    Published

  • A Tale of Lost Edges: Don’t Try This at Home

    Girl. Today in “What is you doin’?” news: Popular beauty blogger Gigi Beauty shared a very personal—and teachable—moment with her fan base, ending with a very big reveal: Girl. Through nervous laughter, Gigi explained that a beauty experiment (read: bad idea) had compelled her to relax her hair not once, but twice. In one day.…

    By

    Maiysha Kai

    Published