I wear my hair in its natural state. It is full, glorious, and the embodiment of my character. My hair is full of kinks that grow upward and out toward the sky in a way mainstream beauty standards cannot appreciate. I love my hair, but I also know that my luscious locks are not valued by most.

by Kamiiya Williams

I was in college when Lil Wayne’s song “Every Girl” first came out. I admit, it was one of my favorite songs to play on my iPhone while I worked out in the gym and it got me going at the house parties. However, the first line of his verse always stood out to me: “I like a long-haired, thick redbone,” as it described what many men thought to be the "ideal" woman.

Over the last decade, black women’s hair has become a topic of discussion, not only amongst salon goers, but also throughout society. Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair” gave the world insight into the secret society of relaxers, wigs and weave. Since then, women of color have embraced their right to decide how they wear their hair and the processes they undergo to achieve that look.

by Bee Quammie

I’m about a month away from the estimated due date of my first child, and to say I’ve learned new lessons about myself and this journey is the understatement of the year. The battle between authenticity and dishonesty is one that I didn’t realize would be so prevalent, but here we are.

Many of my most vivid memories from childhood involve my hair.  Most of those recollections are less than pleasant: floods of tears and insecurity. But I also remember strutting like a perfectly coiffed peacock  after spending hours situated between my mother's knees or leaving the beauty shop.

Why is it that as African-American women our own minds, the media, some of our men and anyone else who doesn’t grasp the indescribable depth of our divinely inspired beauty often try to tell us otherwise?

I'll be the first to say there were times in my life when I looked in the mirror and didn't like what looked back at me. I never reached the point of not loving who I saw, but liking what I saw was a song of a completely different tune. Those things that jiggle, wiggle, drop, flop, and flubber have once been a pain in my, well, I won't even say where, especially since that’s one of my areas of concern. However, even with the jiggle, wiggle, drop, flop and flubber, I believe I’m beautiful. We all are.

What does self love mean? What does loving myself even look like? What paradigm of self love should I follow? I couldn’t look in the media because it’s plastered with images of people perpetuating ideals of flawed standards of beauty. I couldn’t look to music because it’s inundated with products of cosmetic surgeries and booty shots posing as artists and video vixens. I couldn’t even look at my parents because they have yet to discover the phenomenon of self love for themselves. So, where did I look? Myself.

by Rose Tattoo of The Free Woman Chronicles

My father never told me I was beautiful. He may have said I looked nice or given his approval on how I looked. But to my recollection I never heard that I looked pretty or beautiful. This isn’t one of those “woe is me, my Daddy didn’t love me” essays though.

In the past year I have done a lot of thinking about the power of words and affirmations. Just as children can grow up believing certain things about themselves from the labels and descriptions others put upon them, they can also grow up making associations with other words and descriptions. For example the word “beautiful” became a description that was defined by what the boys and men, including my father and brother, applied to everyone outside of me. That word was reserved for women on television, usually white or fair-skinned, always with long hair, and always skinny. It was sometimes used to describe girls at school. But even as I got older and I was “cute,” I was never “beautiful.”

by Ashley Coleman of writelaughdream

Recently I went to an event with my boyfriend that I was looking forward to. The moniker seemed to celebrate black culture and I thought I was in for an evening of good vibes. The crowd was primarily African-American and when we walked in everyone was dressed so beautifully, but one thing was missing– smiles.

by Kriste Peoples

My friend Ron has the tiniest dimple. It’s just down and off to the right of her smile. Her smile is radiant, like flicking on the brights at night. She’s got full wide lips and big strong teeth that speak of vitamins and good home training; her gap speaks of a solid constitution. Ron’s got a space between her two front teeth that I would have happily traded my lunch money a thousand times over for. It’s stunning. It’s famous. When they say Mind the gap, they mean check out my friend’s smile. Were you aware of this?

by dara mathis

I never thought the final frontier would be weave. There was never any war; but if there was one, then surely, we have won it. Seven years ago, I joined a then-small community of women who braved hard stares, insults, overt and covert shade thrown–just because they cut their hair and went natural. Whether we did it to be counterculture or not, once that last inch of relaxed hair was gone, we had cut ourselves right out of black mainstream thought about our hair.

by Sarah Webb

by Erickka Sy Savane of Bitches Brew

My fascination with lips began around 10 years old when I met Rachael at summer camp. Rachael had beautiful skin the color of cinnamon and the plumpest, prettiest top lip I had ever seen. Until then, lips were only noticed if they seemed too big for a person’s face, and usually that meant the person was getting teased.

by Cal Radcliff

Recently I decided to get rid of my relaxer and start wearing my hair in its natural state. Now that I have been wearing it natural for about 2 months it dawned on me that for the majority of my 40 years I have always worn my hair straightened out in one way or another.

by Christin Webb

Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I have nothing against women that choose to wear their hair natural. In my past life, years before the mass transition of black women going from processed hair back to natural hair, I wore my hair natural for a span of five to six years. I loved my natural hair. Its lush curls I’d learned to train and nurture became my signature and pride. At some point, however, I decided it was a bit more work than what I wanted to put up with and darted back to the world of processed tresses and permed my hair.

by Jordan Hamilton

I wasn’t always a plus size woman, but somewhere between high school and college the pounds began to increase. Although I was gaining weight for several different reasons, I had always been a lady that was pretty easy on the eyes. As I grew older my beauty began to blossom like a flower. Despite the extra pounds I had accumulated over the years, I was a beautiful woman.

by Alice Raglan

First day of college; I strut into the lecture hall. Throngs of lace-straight heads turn in my direction to behold my "captivating" coiffure. As they confusedly study my cotton-candy textured Afro, I wonder what the motivation behind their curious glances is. Is it confusion as to why my hair is wool-thick while other people with the same caramel skin have hair that lays flat? Is it bewilderment as to why I have decided to keep the tiny shred of my robbed, violated culture that still exists? Are they wondering why I would want to preserve the minuscule mark of my origin washed white in every other way?

“Nappy,” “kinky,” and “coarse” are some of the terms used to describe the tightly-coiled texture of three-fourths of the indigenous African population and of most Black people living in Africa and America today. In North America, these were considered negative terms (sometimes fighting words), because the hair being described was not favored and the terms used to describe it were not considered complimentary.

originally posted at Faces of Black Fashion

I come from a legacy of small women, but I did not always accept and embrace that legacy. It’s one of those things that you don’t talk about openly. These kind of conversations are reserved for trusted girlfriends or family members, until someone disrupts your security blanket with the all too sarcastic “oh shut up” or “cry me a river.” What right do you have to complain when mainstream society says your body type is the ideal? Are your feelings valid when well-meaning folks around you tell you that you’re so lucky that clothes fit you easily and that they “wish they had your figure.”

The deadly game of gender body image comparison wreaks havoc on our social, emotional and psychological health.  When coupled with sadistic messages of thinness from commercial media and pharmaceutical companies that push diet and supplemental pills, it ultimately becomes a whirlwind of frustration, destruction and loss.

Eating disorders are often generally depicted as stories only associated with Caucasian women.  When topics of anorexia nervosa and or bulimia arise, faces of skinny, depressed looking white teens plaster the cover pages of magazines, websites, and pamphlets used to educate society.  Blocked out are the faces of the other women of color who too suffer from these same toxic illnesses.