What to do this week: support Black-owned brands and creators!
What to buy
What: Brigeo Hair Care
Where: Brigeo Hair
Who: Nancy Twine, the founder of Brigeo Hair Care, began her natural hair care line in West Virginia using knowledge she gained working alongside her grandmother, a beauty guru in her small town.
Description: Brigeo products contain no harsh sulfates, silicones, phthalates, parabens, DEA, or artificial dyes and "offer something for everyone – from repair, to volume, to curl care. We'll never give you anything you don't need." Brigeo products are 90 to 100 percent naturally derived and are cruelty-free, gluten free, and mostly vegan.
What: Beauty Bakerie
Where: Beauty Bakerie
Who: Cashmere Nicole founded Beauty Bakerie in 2011. Her story is incredible: she became a young mom at 16, fought and survived breast cancer, and started Beauty Bakerie while undergoing treatment.
Description: Beauty Bakerie has adorable products that are inspired by baking, from ice cream themed highlighters to cotton candy blush palettes. The products last long and look great, saving you from constant re-applications.
What: Pear Nova Nail Lacquer
Where: Pear Nova
Who: Rachel James graduated from the Academy of Design & Technology, Chicago, and quickly joined the artistic scene in the city.
Description: Pear Nova uses styles from the runway to create vibrant colors to fit every skin tone. Their products are made in the USA, cruelty free, vegan friendly, and free of formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, toluene, and dibutyl Phthalate DBP.
What: Hanahana Beauty
Where: Hanahana Beauty
Who: Abena Boamah went from Algebra teacher to business owner after founding Hanahana Beauty with the mission of creating a brand of skincare products based on transparency and sustainability and featuring the ingredient close to her heart: shea butter.
Description: Hanahana Beauty is an "all-natural, skincare + wellness brand whose mission is to disrupt the global beauty industry." They buy shea butter at 2x the fair trade price directly from the Katariga Women's Shea Cooperative in Tamale, Ghana.
What: One Eleven Candles
Where: One Eleven Candles
Description: One Eleven Candles is based in Pickerington, Ohio, and aims to "bring our customers quality, delicious smelling candles, that also have a higher purpose." Their products blend delicious-smelling oils with gorgeous and purposeful crystals, drawing on spiritual beliefs to promote "enlightenment, inspiration, intuition, and self-expression."
What: DIOP Face Masks
Where: DIOP
Description: These masks "utilize an elastic two strap design that goes around the head rather than the ears. This is to reduce strain on the ears and provide a much more snug fit around the face. The masks are a triple layered woven cloth mask made with our 100% wax printed cotton." A portion of the proceeds from the sale of DIOP Masks is donated to Feed the Frontlines in Detroit, where DIOP is based.
Where to eat
What: The Glow Cafe & Juice Bar
Where: 389 Admiral Street, Providence
When: Monday-Friday 9am-4pm, Saturdays 9am-2pm
Description: The Glow serves "nutrient packed fresh juices, smoothies, fruit bows, and more." The drinks are healthy and affordable. Theyu are currently doing curbside pickup and have online ordering through their website. They also deliver with Grubhub!
What to listen to
Who: Isaac Dunbar
Where: Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Amazon Music
Description: An alternative-pop singer, Isaac Dunbar writes songs that touch on his experience as a gay Gen-Z teenager, reflecting on first love, gender, and growing up with "elevated electronic sound," according to Billboard. He is from Barnstable, Massachusetts, and began to gain fame in 2017 when the blog We Are Going Solo featured his song "Pharmacy."
What to read
What: Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams
Who: Candice Carty-Williams is a senior marketing executive at Vintage. In 2016, she created and launched the Guardian and 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, which aims to find, champion, and celebrate underrepresented writers. She contributes regularly to i-D, Refinery29, BEAT Magazine, and more, and her pieces, especially those about blackness, sex, and identity, have been shared globally.
Where: Reparations Club Bookstore
Description: Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.
As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.
With “fresh and honest” (Jojo Moyes) prose, Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.
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What to watch
What: Belle
Where: Amazon Prime Video, Apple, Vudu, YouTube
Who: The director, Amma Asante, is a British BAFTA award winning screenwriter and director. Other than Belle, she is famous for A Way of Life (2004). Asante worked as a child actress before beginning her writing career at the age of twenty-three. In 2017, she was awarded an MBE on the Queen's New Year's Honours List.
Description: "The mixed-race daughter, Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), of Royal Navy Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) is raised by aristocratic Great-uncle Lord William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) in eighteenth century England." via IMDB
What to play
What: Combat Core
Where: Steam / Nintendo Switch
Who: MABManz
Description: "While Super Smash Bros. may hold the crown for multiplayer fighting, those interested in something more along the lines of Capcom’s Power Stone may find the Waldorf, Maryland-based developer MABManZ’s Combat Core a title of interest. Each of its distinct characters offers dozens of customization options, and the multiplayer brawler supports both offline and online multiplayer, with crossplay between Steam and Nintendo Switch. Combat Core is also the first fighting game to offer native support for VR headsets like the Oculus Rift." Quote via.
Where to donate
What: Trans Housing Coalition
Where: Trans Housing Coalition, GoFundMe
Who: The founder and co-director, Jesse Pratt López, "founded THC in June 2020 after seeing an unmet need while trying to find housing for her fellow Trans sisters in Atlanta who were chronically homeless."
Description: "The Trans Housing Coalition helps Atlanta’s chronically homeless Transgender and gender non-conforming people move from the streets into long-term housing and on to the lives they want to lead."
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