This Is My Beautiful

Over the weekend, we collaborated with Identity and Culture blogger Daniel Bailey of The Palace of The Dogs, who on our behalf, attended UK’s Afro Hair and Beauty Show. Daniel shares his experience at the event with us below.

However, at this year’s Afro Hair and Beauty show, clouds of puffs and pulsating currants of intricate braiding could be seen all over the Angel Business Centre. Women and girls, bold in their afrocentric fashion, sashayed through The Afro Hair & Beauty Show eager for encouragement and knowledge. Hairstylists demonstrated the latest fashions while haircare brands presented products which would best achieve them.

Designers dressed their stalls in Kente, weaving prints into everyday palettes for an afrocentric norm. The bustling skincare aisle clanged like a market place with customers eager to experiment with the products which were specially made for them. On the other side, others scrambled around searching for the natural products that have, unbeknownst to them, been at their finger tips the whole time.

I spoke to Black business owners who gave me an insight into the setbacks they’d experienced in trying to to source their own hair for creating weaves. Each of them held out their hands, melanin side-up, as reason for disqualification. The cosmetic and skincare brands present in the conversation muttered of their rejection from mainstream superstores because, apparently, there is no market for their product.

The event marked an era of entrepreneurship, it was exciting to see so many products from budding black businesses and the hoards of buzzing customers that they were attracting. “This is my beautiful” echoed throughout the complex; educating and inspiring the younger generation to say their normal is beautiful. Though the black community still do have some visible loopholes in its beauty standards and business, it’s the support and encouragement shared at The Afro Hair and Beauty Show that’ll marry black beauty back to black faces and claim it’s multimillion pound profits.