black hairstyles
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Teach the Babies: Our #WomanCrushWednesday Makes Her Students Feel Beautiful!
This story gets our “Awww … ” of the week: A pre-K teacher in Sugarland, Texas, made a major impact on one of her young students with a “twinning” teachable moment. After complimenting a disbelieving but adorable 4-year-old student named August on her braided hairstyle, teacher Leigh Bishop doubled down on the flattery, showing up…
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Making Hair-Story: This Artist Is Styling Her Insecurities Away
Artist Laetitia Ky has had enough: enough body-shaming, self-doubting and denying the natural beauty all of us possess—no matter what form it takes. The 21-year-old self-proclaimed “Ivorian goddess and polyvalent artist” has taken matters into her own hands—and hair—creating an Instagram full of surrealist imagery that tackles our worst insecurities head-on (pun intended). Using her…
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New Growth: Chicago Med’s Yaya DaCosta Talks Growing Up #TeamNatural and the Beauty of the ‘Big Chop’
You know, this is this woman’s hair, not a continuation of the girl that you thought you knew. Actress and model Yaya DaCosta is talking about her cropped locks, an unexpected move for the woman who first captured our attention in 2004 as the outspoken Afrocentric beauty on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model.…
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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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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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For Dreadlocked Servicewomen, the Fight for Acceptance Is Both a Military and Civilian Battle
First Lt. Whennah Andrews of the U.S. Army National Guard tries to hide her braces while showing off her smile. But four years since first advocating against grooming regulations that barred soldiers from wearing natural hairstyles, her smile hints at relief over one of the final steps in the fight for acceptance. A decade-old ban…
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Canadian MP Rocks ‘Pretty Dope’ Braids in Solidarity With Girls Shamed for Their Hair
Canadian Member of Parliament Celina Caesar-Chavannes took to the floor of our upstair neighbor’s legislative body last week and delivered a moving speech on bullying and intolerance of black hairstyles and features. “Irrespective of her hairstyle, the size of her thighs, the size of her hips, the size of her baby bump, the size of…
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Let Go of Our Hair and Let Our Girls Learn
In recent weeks, there have been a number of news stories about black girls being discriminated against at school for wearing natural hairstyles. In July 2016, a news story went viral about a school in Pretoria, South Africa, banning black girls from wearing natural hairstyles like Afros because they were “untidy” and “unladylike.” In March…
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#HairInspo: How 3 Black Female Techies Are Hoping to Cater to All Your Black Hair Needs
If you’re on this website, I’m going to take it as a given that I don’t need to tell you about the relationship between black women and their hair. And I don’t mean in a political kind of way. I mean the sense of culture and community that surrounds how we groom our luscious locks,…
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How Not to Do a Twist-Out on ‘Caucasian’ Hair
As someone with naturally curly hair, when it’s not locked, I never had the need for a twist-out to achieve curls, and never want to spend more than 30 minutes doing my own hair. But understandably, there are those women out there who’ll spend countless hours to get the perfect twist-out. For those not familiar…