Blog Posts

Happy Thanksgiving – Part I

Now that November is here and Thanksgiving is approaching, I’ll be doing a series on the thing I’m currently most grateful for: community.

I’m eternally grateful for the people who are in my life and the ways in which they’ve blessed me. Today, November 6th, 2015, the official one year mark to the day of my wedding, it’s only right to start this series off by thanking my community of supportive family and friends.

By this time next year, I will be on my way down the aisle to marry the love my life. We’ve been engaged for almost a year now and lots of the wedding plans are already complete thanks to the help of our family and friends. We were gifted so many things to make our dreams come true and know that none of it would be possible without the moral, financial, and physical support of our family and friends. (more…)

Real Love: the not so perfect, not so romantic, raw, down & dirty truth

With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, I want to talk about love – real love, not that infatuation garbage we post as love on social media. I want to talk about true love, the not so perfect, not so romantic, raw, down and dirty love.

I know the pretty soon I’ll see lots of posts from single people wanting to be in a relationship. I get it, it’s nothing wrong with wanting love. We were made to desire love, but ask yourself, are you truly looking for love? Or is what you’re after some unrealistic fantasy you’ve gotten off of social media and movies? (more…)

Privilege at the Ulta

For many African American people in America, white privilege is alive and apparent every day of our lives. We see it everywhere we go, all over our televisions, in politics, etc. A day never goes by that doesn’t remind us that life in America might be a little easier if we had fairer skin.

I’ve recently gotten into wearing makeup. When I’m heading to a party, or out for a celebration, I like to dress up my outfit with an amazing full face of makeup. I love it. But what I don’t love, is my oily skin causing my flawless finish to shine. Nothing is better than a matte face, so I visited my local Ulta in a hunt for an oil-free foundation at a decent price. Since Ulta carries many drug store brands, I knew that a representative could give me some good advice for an inexpensive product.

When I walked in, I had no problem finding someone to help me look for a foundation, nor did the representative and I have problems finding foundations made for oily skin, but the problem we did face was finding a foundation dark enough for my complexion. The representative, a young, blond, caucasian woman, was so shocked. She couldn’t believe how limited the color selection was. We paced from alise to alise, brand to brand, only to find one brand with a color in my shade. The representative couldn’t believe it. She even made a comment that she usually “just picks up her color with ease” so she never realized how difficult it could be for someone of my complexion to find a foundation in their shade. (more…)

August We Are Onyx Box Review

We Are Onyx is a beauty box tailored to women of color. It is a $25 monthly subscription of hair, skin and nail samples shipped right to your front door that always includes at least 5 regular, deluxe and/or full size samples. The total for all of the items shipped will always exceed the $25 paid for the box. Four samples are picked by their beauty editors and one sample is left to the subscribers to choose what they would prefer. When a person signs up for a We Are Onyx box, they are prompted to fill out a profile indicating their skin and hair type, so no one should be left with a product they can’t use.

I have been getting We Are Onyx boxes for 2 months now. It’s so exciting to get home each month to find a box full of new goodies waiting for me to try. So far, I’ve loved everything that I have tried from my Onyx boxes, but I must admit that I have yet to try all of my products. There’s just never enough time in a month.

(more…)

Hairfinity, Biotin & Hair Growth… Oh My!

Click Here to Purchase

If you follow the natural hair world, you may have noticed a boom in the talk about a vitamin named Hairfinity. All of my favorite YouTubers, celebrities, and even some of my friends on Facebook, are all on or have once been on a Hairfinity journey. I can’t blame them. Hairfinity has proven itself to work. Although different people report different, not so flattering, side effects, they all report quick and easy hair growth. It’s hard not to get sucked into the dream of taking vitamins and magically having long luxurious hair. But one thing I can’t get sucked into is that price. Twenty-four dollars for a 30 day supply, not including shipping and handling. I’m frugal. I’d rather spend my money on a vacation. So I turned to the source for a better option. I promise, there is nothing you can’t learn from YouTube. (more…)

25 Rules!

On July 24^th, 2014, I turned 25 years old. We celebrated in beautiful Miami, FL and I had the time of my life – thus far. Most women don’t like talking about their age but I couldn’t be happier to be 25 years old. For once I feel like I’ve finally caught up to the number that I’m supposed to be. I’ve always considered myself mature for my age, but 25 feels like a perfect fit. I feel like I’m right where I want to be in life for this age. I’ve accomplished so much, made many mistakes and learned so much, and have grown so much in the 25 years that I have been on this earth.

So to honor my 25 years of life, I will share with you (in no particular order) the 25 rules I live by and why… maybe you can learn from a few of my mistakes as well 🙂

Be kind

Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Don’t make it harder on them. I personally, get no joy out of treating others badly. In fact, I’m so ridden with guilt when I’m mean to someone, that I’m sure I suffer more than the person I was mean to.

(more…)

Hair Love!

So I’m kind of late to the party but earlier this year Tracee Ellis Ross did a YouTube video called “Hair Love” where she talked about the hair envy that people have over her curl pattern and how she wanted people to love and cherish their own hair. She challenged her subscribers to do a video response giving her 5 reasons why they loved their hair and she started the conversation by giving her 5 reasons. See the video below for more information.

I wish I would have stumbled across this earlier because I would have definitely submitted a response, but better late than never, right? So here I go..

(more…)

The Rules…

Men are stupid. No, I refuse to believe that… Men pretend to be stupid. I find it hard to believe that men cannot grasp the concepts that seem so simple to myself and females alike. So I reiterate, men pretend to be stupid.

It amazes me how my boyfriend is able to turn his stupidity on and off when its convenient for him. When it comes to pointing out one of my shortcomings he’s Einstein, but the minute he wants to do something against my better judgment, he takes the lead role in Dumb and Dumber.

Here’s why I say this, and please let me know if I’m wrong in this situation. Today, my boyfriend leaves the house (where we both live) without a peep of his whereabouts. Me, being the person that I am, assumes that he’d just be a minute, either to get something out of the car, check the mail, etc. But after 10-15 minutes when he still hadn’t returned, I realized his destination was much further. So I called him to see where he was… down the street with a friend. And upon his return, he brought that same friend back with him, again with no prior notice.

I feel like we’ve had this conversation a million times before, so this time, I knew my approach needed to change. While he and his friend played video games and drunk up all the Kool-Aid, I used my time to write out some rules and prologue to clearly express all that I wanted to say. It read: (more…)

My Natural Hair Story

My last relaxer was in April of 2012 for Easter. I went with my grandmother to the hair salon so that we could spend some time together and get “pretty” for church on Sunday. I had already been thinking about going natural, but I wasn’t convinced that my natural texture would be something I could live with, so against my better judgment, I got a relaxer.

Easter 2012

In hindsight, I should have known it was a bad idea. There’s a reason why my relaxed hair could never grow past my chin, and in addition to extreme breakage, my scalp never responded well to relaxers. Every single time I went for a touch up, my scalp would literally burn. It didn’t matter how long the relaxer sat on my hair, or what techniques were use, I always had sores on my scalp by the time I left the salon, and this particular time was no different… well, except for the fact that the stylist disappeared for an entire hour right after lathering my scalp with active relaxer!
(more…)