mixed chicks products: a black hairstory (and education) for everybody

photo: getty images

I have just been on a whirlwind tour of a conversation started by a recent article on Coco and Creme, in which Alexis Garrett Stodghill poses the question, Do Mixed Chicks Hair Care Products Make Light Seem Right?  Mixed Chicks, as in the line of hair products started by entrepreneurs (and mixed chicks themselves) Wendy Levy and Kim Etheredge, to address the needs of bi-racial women's "combination hair".  In the article, Stodghill points out the not-often-brought-up-in-mixed-company-Black reality that the concept of good hair is still alive and well, and chewing away at a lot of Black women's self-esteem (yes, even now, in 2011).  In light of this reality, and citing a recent feature on Black Enterprise, Stodghill calls out the makers of Mixed Chicks products for, she says,

" ... providing themselves with a marketing vehicle through the black community, while targeting their multi-racial audience, at the cost of black women’s self-esteem.
By being featured in Black Enterprise, and shouting out Halle Berry as a supporter, these mixed chicks are clearly drawing on the energy of the black audience for their company’s benefit. At the same time, they want to emphasize the fact that they are not black — flaunting hair black women spend billions every year trying to replicate.  Hair is such a sensitive issue to black women, it is inherently divisive to market a product for mixed women through avenues intended for a predominantly black-identified audience. I find it abrasive and wrong." (Coco & Creme)

My own reaction to Mixed Chicks products has been much less visceral than Stodghill's:  A few months ago, while shopping for hair products, the name seemed to jump out at me from a store shelf.  The entire encounter lasted seconds, literally.  Once I realized that yes, that label said Mixed Chicks, my next thought was 'Obviously not intended for me,' and I moved on.  I did not feel insulted, as Stodghill claims the average African-American woman will be by the brand's name.  That being said, I think she brings up a valid point of discussion when it comes to the marketing of Mixed Chicks products.  I also think Stodghill's article is a  courageous piece of writing in which the author lays bare and calls out her own “good hair” jealously, putting what seems like a tender personal spot out there for people to do with as they see fit.  And the 109 (so far) commenters wasted no time before pouncing on Stodghill, taking an article about the possibly devisive naming of a brand of hair products and spawning necessary (though at times unnecessarily rude) offshoot conversations about so much more. 

I am as inspired by the article itself as I am by the comments and ensuing passionate offshoot conversations I have come accross on  facebook about it, to examine my own reactions to this story.  For example, I may not have felt personally insulted when I first saw the Mixed Chicks label, but the way it jumped out at me may mean more than I have been inclined to think until now.  And I didn't get to growing and loving my own cascade of dreadlocks overnight.  My hairstory has been long, and winding, and it is beginning to feel called for.  These conversations are an opportunity for us to learn from each other. And I mean ALL of us, including sisters and brothers of all races who want to know more about why things are the way they are.  What are your thoughts?  Care to share your hairstory?

saturday special(s): jay smooth and kevin powell

If you live in the United States and care for current events, you probably know the feast the media has had this week with R&B singer Chris Brown's latest batch of bad decisions (to put it mildly):  He freaked out after being asked some Rihanna questions on Good Morning America, and a chair ended up hitting a dressing room window, sending glass shattering onto the sidewalk.  Thankfully nobody was hurt.  The next day Brown apologized (ahem!) on BET's 106th & Park, saying basically that his actions were a reaction to feeling blindsighted by the line of questioning,  because it wasn't in line with previously agreed upon talking points, saying, "I felt like, it was like okay, they told us this, just so they could get us on the show to exploit me."



Obviously, what the young man needs more than anything else is help.  But that's not the story that sells.  It's the Look-See! story that sells most when celebrities unravel, hence the media circus spotlight, the collective How Could He?!, myriad debates about how long he should have to suffer for his past, or whether he's being treated fairly, given what Charlie Sheen has been up to (??!!!) etc, etc ...

By now you might be wondering what a post about Chris Brown's drama (with other peoples' names in the title) is doing on a beauty blog.  Well, while I couldn't escape the story (as a consumer of media), I did run into two reactions that made me feel hopeful, and made me think, Beautiful.  Check them out:

From  Jay Smooth's ILL DOCTRINE:



And writer Kevin Powell's Open Letter To Chris Brown from News One, which concludes:

"All eyes are on you because you’ve brought the world to your doorstep, my friend. The question alas, Chris, is do you want to go forward or not? And if yes to going forward, then you must know it means going to the deepest and darkest parts of your past to heal what ails you, once and for all, for the good of yourself, and for the good of those who are watching you very closely and who may learn something from what you do. Or what you do not do. The choice is yours, Chris Brown. The choice is yours—"

Both men offer in depth, heartfelt reactions to the madness of the situation.  But most importantly, they also offer constructive solutions to Chris Brown's problems, which go so much deeper than the PR of it all, and that is what I find beautiful.
Thoughts?

beauty music: jessie j - price tag

Okay.  I had no idea who Jessie J was until this past Saturday, when she just about set the SNL stage afire. Afire, I said.

from the mouths of beauties: watoto from the nile

"My daddy tells me I'm a queen

But you call women other things

It makes me mad

I can't pretend

Sir, don't call me out my name again"

snippet from the thorough (yet, still fully respectful) reading served a couple of weeks ago in Open Letter to Lil' Wayne by Watoto From the Nile. Mn!

from the mouths of beauties: lovetta conto

" No matter how down the women in the refugee camp were, they always found a way to express themselves with beautiful jewelry and clothes they made from what they had ... Some people may say, 'Why should a girl who comes from a place where people struggle to get food care about fashion or jewelry?'  But I believe that your spirit wants beauty no matter your conditions.  Even something as ugly as a bullet that was fired in a war can be made beautiful if you are willing to work to change it into something else."

Lovetta Conto

lovetta conto: from bullets to beauty

Practically born into the civil war that raged through her home country of Liberia for over a decade, designer Lovetta Conto spent the majority of her childhood living  in Ghana's Buduburam refugee camp, waiting for peace.  It was there that, at age 12, she met Cori Stern,  founder of The Strongheart Fellowship, a program designed to help gifted young people, who have been orphaned or uprooted by war, create businesses to benefit their communities.  Conto was chosen as the first Strongheart Fellow, and Akawelle, the beautiful line of jewelry she designs, made with bullet casings from the Liberian civil war, was born.  Check out the video below:

ebony gets a new look (again?!)

photo: y. diggs

I mean, I may be one of only a handful of folks who noticed, but Ebony magazine got a new look early last year, when they changed the block red and white logo (that used to hang in the upper left corner of the cover) into a bigger silver lettered (sometimes white, or blue) version that suddenly spanned the width of the magazine. 

The cover text font was changed to a finer, sleeker version and the  photography suddenly seemed crisper and more modern.  Now, I thought I had worked through those changes (Hey, that magazine has been around in my life, all my life, like air, so I'm not pretending this is rational, just saying).  Evidently, I was wrong:

photo: y. diggs

 According to recently hired Editor-In-Chief, Amy DuBois Barnett, herself part of the overhaul at the magazine, “This is a top-to-bottom redesign, not a small one ... This is everything from introducing an evolution of our 65-year-old logo to really taking apart every single page in the magazine and putting it back together with an eye to the brand pillars that we now think best reflect our target demographic.” (Clutch)

I get it:  A 65-year old magazine must do what a 65-year old magazine must do in the face of a giant economic crisis coupled with a mass movement towards digital journalism.  My guess is that Ebony's makeover won't make a bit of difference to those of us who have the magazine coursing through our veins.  But I wonder if it will accomplish its goal of widening the magazine's readership.  What do you think?  Got any Ebony plans?

saturday special: man beauty, chris rock

Because we still (and probably always will) appreciate his documentary, Good Hair, Chris Rock is our man beauty this week.  Check out the trailer, and, if you haven't yet, please do see this film.  It is an education.

beauty music: watoto from the nile

My oh my, if ever I needed to feel inspired ...

galliano and the quasi apology

The artist formerly known as creative director of Christian Dior, John Galliano, has released a statement about his recent anti-semitic drunken rants, that includes an apology.  Well, sort of an apology:

"... I completely deny the claims made against me and have fully co-operated with the Police investigation ... However, I fully accept that the accusations made against me have greatly shocked and upset people ... I must take responsibility for the circumstances in which I found myself and for allowing myself to be seen to be behaving in the worst possible light." (Telegraph.co.uk)

You know what would be an absolute breath of fresh air?  If the next called for public apology turned out to be just that: a plain and simple apology, with no extra I'm-Not-That-Bad frills around it.  We could be spared extraneous bow tie/sweater combos in melon-berry-burst-skittle blue, and/or the part where we, the offended, are somehow the ones who got caught up "losing the point"  being made.  We could skip those bits all together, and just focus on the topic at hand.  Maybe then, these apologies would feel more real, and not so much like emergency public relations moves.

But to be fair, substance abuse is real and very rarely produces rational behavior, so Galliano's sort-of apology shouldn't come as a shock. We do love that he has chosen to go to rehab, and wish him the absolute best.

Read Galliano's full statement here .  What do you think?

miss representation: movie takes on media's message to women

The mainstream media --specifically, whatever twisted barrage of messages it sends out to the world about women-- has not been a conscious everyday concern in my life.  I have known for a long time, and from much personal experience (I am after all a black woman living in the United States), that the media is no friend to my womanhood. I feel almost immune to advertisements.  I’m that shopper who knows what she wants, because she has done the research, not the one who needs the salesperson’s opinion in order to make a decision.   At the same time, I don’t have the resources to change the system I live in immediately, so what ends up happening is my daily attempt at finding balance between living with a certain automatic sense of armor about me , always there like an extra thickness to my skin, and trying to be what I would like to see more of in the world (love, positivity, manners, attention spans, real conversations, etc...).  Until recently, this is what worked for me.  

Then I heard the first two soundbites from the trailer to Miss Representation, a documentary by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, that explores the ways in which women are under-represented in positions of power, challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media:     

"The media is the message and the messenger, and increasingly a powerful one."

Pat Mitchell, President & CEO of Paley Center for Media

Former President & CEO of PBS

"In a world of a million channels, people try to do more shocking and shocking things to break through the clutter.  They resort to violent images, or sexually offensive images, or demeaning images."

Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media

Lawyer and Professor of Civil Rights at Stanford University 

Along with the accompanying imagery, these two people’s words snapped me out of my way of thinking.  See, the images (women in various stages of undress in different scenarios, some with legs splayed open and cash being poured on them, etc...) were nothing new, and what was being said was nothing new, but the way the information was broken down and delivered hit home:  So what if thus far, I’ve had the (collateral) luxury, as a woman who chooses not to have children, of not having to think about how the media’s potential role in my offspring’s self esteem, or their sense of perception in general?  I’m still not immune to the results of what is happening.  

Even if I can see through it, many more (and many younger) cannot, and that’s dangerous for us all.  On a personal level:  If things keep going the way they have been, that random pack of ill-behaved, way too loud young girls in barely any clothes, who just know they’re grown,  that we can still cross the street to avoid in a pinch, could very well become the norm.  What happens when there is no other side to cross to?  Do we really need to get there to know that it’s not where we want to be?  Check out the trailer.  What do you think?

from the mouths of beauties: edwidge danticat

"Looking pretty, looking beautiful, in a disaster zone might be one more way of exclaiming to the world that you are doing more than breathing, that you are surviving, that you matter."

Edwidge Danticat
--excerpt from A Place Of Refuge, an essay in Allure's March 2011 issue, about the redemptive power of beauty for some women in Haiti, when poverty and devastation threatens their basic humanity.