Just in time to start your carnival weekend the two day event which ran from Saturday 25th – Sunday 26th August. took place at the Lindley Hall celebrating all things hair, beauty, sisterhood and womanhood.
Day 1 (Friday)
The day kicked off with live talks with hair and beauty experts and enthusiasts focusing on black beauty from hair to business. At 12pm the co founder of Afrocenchix moderated the first talk of the day ‘The Revolution is hair’ with the likes of Sal Baxter founder of Root2tip, the amazing celebrity hair stylist Kevin Shanti, brand ambassador of the popular hair brand London Virgin Hair Chrissie Milan taking part in the panel discussion.
The next talk took place at 1pm hosted by Tolani who previously worked for BuzzFeed, and is 1/3 of the popular podcast show ‘The receipts’ who have recently launched a weekly show with BBC 1XTRA #girlbosses. Naomi Oni who was a victim of an acid attack by a friend in 2012 shared her own truth on what the perception of beauty now means to her.
The media industry has had its back and forth about women of colour not getting further ahead, as well as darker skinned ladies not climbing the ladder although having the same experience as a lighter skinned women. At 3pm, ‘Black Beauty represented’ had the likes of successful presenters and editors such as Zeze Millz who is the presenter and founder of platfotm ‘The Zeze Millz show’ – she regularly speaks upon challenges that women face in the industry and the support that is lacked by men. Yinka Bokinni who is the presenter of Capital Xtra spoke upon the challenges some may face when attempting the climb the media industry and the importance of black beauty being celebrated and represented.
Day 2 (Saturday)
If you are beauty fanatic then you would of most certainly enjoyed the first talk of the day which started at 11am – makeup focused, giving you the best beauty tips and tricks for women with darker skin complextions, as well as digging into the famous saying ‘Black don’t crack’
Everyone’s favourite beauty influencer Mariam Musa was on the panel sharing her journey to success as well as LA Based makeup artist and founder of Jacque Mgido cosmetics Jackie Mgido.
Now unless you have been living under a rock, you will be more than familiar with the #SLAYINYOURLANE black girl bible written by best friends Yomi and Lizzie. This book focuses on the challenges that black girls may have in literally every single area of life whether that be at school, university, work/career or dating this book honestly touches on areas and opens your eyes to reality that you did not necessarily know was real.
The pair were also doing a book signing (I brought my book the day the book dropped) but I do wish I remembered to bring mine along to get it signed by these two queens.
Pressures of ‘Perfection’ Women vs Men
This was the last talk of the day hosted by co-owner of The Black Magic Network Annika Allen, the panel discussed focused on whether men set the standard of what beauty is to women. The panel consisted of the wise worded amazing Nissy Tee who is a presenter, youtuber and founder of BEBB. BKchat ldn personality Lucas Walker, the hilarious comedian Kojo Anim, radio presenter and comedian Travis Jay, and Chimmy Lawson author of The little Pink book.
The back and forth between the ladies and gents focused on is men support their black sisters, or if some campaigns are necessary for men to support. This was the perfect segment to end the day and the event on as we all agreed to disagree with some of the men’s views.
This is such a much needed event in the black community, we really hope that this event will run again next year – well done to the whole team for putting on something so spectacular.
