Five Days Left!!!!

There are only a few more bracelets and cuffs in the trunk this week. Go by www.peaceandbeautyproject.org to see what other wood pieces we have, and sign up to find out what will be up next. Don't forget, when you make your donation this week, you get a free Weleda Shower Cream which is divine by the way, and your donation is tax deductible.

Have a SAKILE Summer!!!!

This Could Be Your Daughter

My friend Lacey C. Clark has a post on her Facebook page where a 14 year old girl (not the one picured here) has had her face slashed to the inner facia (white tissue) from temple to chin; completely laid open so deeply that it makes my insides hurt to see it. When I saw this picture, I was reminded that The Peace & Beauty Project will do more. Our girls are our responsibility. We need to bring them back in. Back in the day a movie called Drop Squad kind of gave us an idea. We need to do a mass SANKOFA. We need to take our girls back. They are the leaders of this movement.

I just saw this picture today; this happened in March of this year, supposedly over a boy. A boy!!! I believe like my husband believes that these slashings have nothing to do with boys, but self hate. You have to really hate who you are to be able to do this to another person. Our girls can be using the energy they spend planning and plotting to scar someone for life to make some real potent and powerful moves in our communities; use their powers for good. This is one of the things that The Peace & Beauty Project is about. We need our girls to step up and lead this movement. Please visit http://www.peaceandbeautyproject.org/ to sign up for notification and to learn when and where we meet.

Blessed love my sisters and I look forward to seeing you in the tribe.

I Rock Rough and Tough w/My Afro Puffs

I admit it, I've been struggling with my hair too. When I had long locs, I could just put them up in a bun, twists, or a fish tail and be on my way. Now that I have cut them and I'm growing my hair out, it's in the "in between" stage and I often don't know what to do with it. I'm tempted to cut it down to a brush cut, but I really want to have this gigantic afro puff by next summer, so I'm staying focused.

I have rediscovered raw, uncut shea butter lately. The challenge I have with my hair is that it's so dry. I need to drink more water, which is the only way to truly moisturize the hair, but while I'm training to do this at 40 years old, I just wash and twist it with shea butter, and this simple process is so nourishing for my hair it's not even funny. I have been used to mixing up my own products as a former body and hair care product manufacturer, but there is no need to mix anything with raw shea. I just scoop up a heaping helping, and voila, I'm good and my twist out lasts longer too.

Hope you'll return to your shea butter, if you've left, and keep using if you haven't. I rediscovered why I used shea butter in most of my creations and I'm looking forward to having that big "Thelma off Good Times" afro puff real soon.

Perming Little Girls Hair Should Be Considered Abuse...That's Right...I Said It.

The last time I relaxed my hair, I cried. Hawaiian Silky was my poison of choice. At the time, freeze curls was the look - you know where they spray the spritz from the hot pink bottle onto some strands of hair and fry it to a hard crisp with a blazing hot curling iron? Kind of similar to the wisps and feathers they're doing today to make the mohawks and cokatoos. Anyway, this Hawaiian Silky burned so badly that tears began streaming from my eyes involuntarily!!!!! It was like someone had taken a veggie peeler, ran it over my scalp several times, poured alcohol over it, and then set a match to the whole thing. This wasn't the worst part of it. When the hair dresser went to rinse that bad boy - OH MY SNAP!!!!!! The water took it to an unprecedented level to a world known as hell. Hell was exploding on my head. Still this wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that I did NOTHING!!!! I said NOTHING!!! I paid this woman $50 for this torture, thanked her for the style and vowed with gleem in my eyes to return in a couple of weeks for more.

I was a grown ass woman when this happened to me, imagine what little girls go through in this process. By default we tell them that their hair is bad, that something needs to be done with it, that what they have naturally growing from their beautiful heads is not worth the time it takes to moisturize, condition, and honor. We have ritualized this torture treatment to become something that we spend $10 billion dollars a year on in the name of what we have been forced to believe is beautiful.

Think about it. There are typically more than 75 ingredients in a box of relaxer. Yes, there's some shea butter, olive oil, water, wheat protein, etc., but the majority of this poison has some great issues to reckon with. Perms contain ingredients that are known to cause cancer, cause reproductive and hormonal problems, and of course skin irritation and sensitivity. Lets say it doesn't permeate the skin and scalp, which it does, but lets just say it doesn't. Do I still want to put this cocktail of toxicity on my child's hair and skin?

OK, so if all this bad stuff comes from a box of perm, why does the government allow manufacturers to make and sell it? I am a former manufacturer of natural and organic beauty care products. Trust me when I say, there is not enough regulation in the cosmetics industry. European government has banned more than 1,100 toxic ingredients from beauty care products made in their country. The US has banned 10.

Think about this too. Our government still allows the sales of cigarettes even though we know it causes cancer, and some companies even market to our youth. In this county, if it makes money, it makes sense. Perms affect Black women. Who cares? Our false sense of beauty is worth tens fo billions every year. Who gives a flip if there are more Black women under 35 with breast cancer than any other group? Who cares if Black women have more incidences of breast cancer death than any other group?

Peace & Beauty does and we're doing something about it. Education, not judgement, information, not ridicule, sharing and celebrating our true selves, and most importantly planting seeds of self awareness for our girls so that they know that their hair is naturally beautiful. Back in the day, I didn't realize that my natural crown was beautiful. I didn't even realize there were real options to relaxing my hair. Relaxing my hair, as if it was tense or uptight anyway, was a part of everyday life and I never, ever, ever thougth twice about it. In fact, I wondered why the few girls that I did see with natural hair didn't perm their hair. I considered them to be out-of-order with the way things should be. I was always perplexed with these women. Now, I honor what they did to keep themselves safe, healthy, and free of these toxic, harmful chemcials.

Join http://www.peaceandbeautyproject.org/ to keep learning, becoming aware, and spreading the love. Whether you relax your hair or not, we embrace you sisters.