Source:StyleBlazer

From styleblazer.com

It’s amazing how one simple accessory can change a whole outfit. It could be a neon purse or beautifully crafted earrings or even a diamond ring, but whatever it is, it has a special appeal. In this new staple we give you one accessory we love… and run with it!

The B-boy and throwback funk of the early Hip-Hop movement is still alive and well today through fashion. The era known for decadent designer threads, Afro-centric prints and thick gold chains has re-emerged in a new and fresh way. Our favorite trend is chunky, often eclectic, necklaces that can be worn with sporty outfits or sophisticated after-work ensembles.

Read more at styleblazer.com

More on Madame Noire!

• Missed Opportunities: Did I Reject the Wrong Guy?
• Wo Ho Te Sεn? 9 Of Our Favorite Celebs of Ghanaian Descent And a Few Surprises…
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha Live: Can I Just Have a Sexual Relationship?
• The Issue With Standing For Nothing: What Exactly Makes You A “Role Model” In The Black Community?
• An Open Letter To People (My Family Included) Who Think It’s OK To Post Tragic News On Facebook
• Skip The Heavy Foundation: Tinted Moisturizers For Brown Skin That Provide Even, Lightweight Coverage
• You Know That’s Annoying, Right? 6 Things You’ve Got to Stop Saying to Your Single Friends

Source:StyleBlazer

From: Styleblazer.com

The fall trends are rolling in as we’re gearing up for the season ahead. The thigh-high boot, a season staple, is beginning to make its way back into stores and, subsequently, back into our closets. But this ultra-chic boot calls for some thoughtful and careful styling. Some of our favorite celebrities have made this item part of their signature look, while others just didn’t seem to get it right. Which is why we’ve put together a list of do’s and don’ts for rocking your thigh-high look this fall.

Read more at styleblazer.com

Left to right: Kenicia Cross and Angelique Michelle

Located in Miami, image consulting firm Iconiq speaks to the way founders Kenicia Cross and Angelique Michelle would like to be perceived. Both 2005 graduates of Howard University, the two officially formed their business a few years after. The firm offers services that include styling, image consulting, personal shopping and a wardrobe rework.

The virtual styling computer program, Iconiq Virtual Wardrobe, one of their most notable developments,  is being transformed into an iPhone app and an interactive website. News reporter turned stylist Cross and image consultant Michelle — who’s worked with the likes of Chris Brown and Kelis— are counting on technology to distinguish and elevate Iconiq in the world of fashion.

Madame Noire: How did you meet and come up with the idea to found Iconiq?

Kenicia Cross: Both Angelique and I graduated from Howard University; she went to school for fashion merchandising, I went to school for journalism. After graduating I moved to California where I was a newscaster. I’d do on-air things and would always ask her what I should wear. I’d send her pictures on my cell phone and I would think, “I wish there was a way you could see my whole closet.” We decided that we would come up with a way to solve this problem. If we were having this issue, we were sure people all over the world could use the same services.

MN: You have a journalism background. How did you become a seasoned stylist?

KC: Growing up I was always into fashion and beauty so I kind of just have a natural talent and passion for it, whereas fashion is what Angelique got her degree in. With her being creative and my skill set — organizing and the business side of things — we make the perfect pair. An important part of running a business with a partner is making sure you complement each other. We taught each other along the way.

Healing Herbs By Renee

Andre Walker, an Emmy award winning stylist best known for his work with Oprah, created a hair chart that would be a base for how most women of color identify their hair texture. Walker’s hair chart had four variations of texture from straight to kinky, Type 1 through 4. Thirteen years ago, Naturally Curly, one of the preeminent natural hair sites, with the help of their beckoning forum users, revamped the hair chart to include more breakdowns under the types. This is the chart that has become most infamous within the black hair community today. Now past Type 1 (straight hair) there is Type 2A-C (wavy hair), Type 3A-C (curly hair), Type 4A-C (coily/kinky hair), which better defines the variations in textures. However, as the natural hair community grows and more women are in search of basic education, a debate has sprung up over the usefulness of hair typing and what purpose it really serves.

Let’s sidebar briefly, before you dismiss this solely as another article on natural hair. Hair typing is used to market products for both natural and relaxed hair. How you apply heat or process your hair is impacted by the natural texture of your hair, therefore, it’s useful for all to be better informed.

Back to the topic at hand. How useful is the hair type chart? We’ve tried to break it down for readers on the site before, and many weren’t sold on it being a positive thing. Some feel that hair typing and the chart that helps you do so is nothing but a divisive tool that provides little information and easily misguides women on hair care. As Imani Dawson, founder of TribeCalledCurl notes:

“Hair typing as it exists today is divisive and ultimately destructive because it emphasizes one “type” of curl texture over another. It also provides limited information; just because your hair looks like someone else’s doesn’t mean it’ll respond to products similarly.  Here are some important factors that the current hair system doesn’t take into account: porosity, strand size, and density.  Curl pattern is the LEAST helpful in terms of caring for your natural hair, and figuring out which products work best.”

Dawson brings up several key points on the debate against the usefulness of hair type charts. The hair chart as it exists today is a simply a chart of curl pattern. Many female consumers who are uninformed (whether relaxed or natural) may simply associate their curl pattern as how to take care of their hair, while remaining ignorant to the key factors that really affect healthy hair care. The porosity of your hair, whether 3A or 4C can greatly sway how products impact it and what maintenance one needs in order to achieve healthy hair. Ever wondered why you and your friend have the same exact hair texture, or dare I say, “hair type,” but you can’t achieve the same styles she does? There’s more to hair then just texture and pattern.

This is not to say that one should just dismiss the hair type chart. It definitely has its place in the grand scheme of educating yourself on your hair. Karen Tappin, founder of Karen’s Body Beautiful, best sums it up by pointing out that the hair type chart “helps naturals be realistic about their texture.” She adds, “If you’re a type 4 hair, your hair won’t behave like type 2 hair, no matter how you style it or which products you use.” Personally, having been natural off and on over the past eight years, the hair type chart has helped me to have realistic expectations of my hair and provide a base for how to treat it. For the longest time I thought I was doing something wrong with my hair, and that everyone was suppose to have 3C/4A hair. I thought there had to be some magic product that I could put in my hair and snap my fingers to get some magic, but my hair was and is 4C.

When Shea Moisture, the organic hair care company aimed at women of color, hosted an event offering consultations on hair type, more than 350 women showed up. Richelieu Dennis, founder of Shea Moisture, spoke to the outreach of their event as it “speaks strongly to the need for guidance, education and support for women with textured hair.” Shea Moisture in their consultations actually took into consideration “other aspects of the hair such as porosity, condition, chemical damage and scalp issues to create a customized hair care regimen.” That is the progressive thought that needs to apply to how to use the hair type chart.

Michelle Breyer, co-founder of Naturally Curly, concedes that the hair type chart is a base to understanding your hair texture. It’s been 13 years since Breyer and associates built upon Andre Walker’s basic hair type chart to create the textured hair type chart of today and they understand the need to further inform the growing world of textured hair. Just as Breyer used her readership to devise the current hair type chart, they are currently working and listening to their core audience to further expand it to help women better understand their hair.

So let’s meet in the middle on the hair type chart and understand that in the end, it is just a base to understanding how to better care for your hair. As you begin to learn more about it, using the hair type chart as a guide can be a great foundation. But remember that as you browse YouTube or stroll down the hair care aisle, there’s more to your hair than just the pattern, and just because you say you’re one type doesn’t mean your days of learning and toiling over your hair are over. Proceed accordingly. Happy healthy hair!

What do you think of the hair type chart and hair typing in general? Does it help you or is it divisive?

Jouelzy offers tutorials on all aspects of Black hair care via her YouTube channel, focusing on women with tight budgets. You can also find her daily hair tips and inspirations on Facebook.

Before transition

It has been a whole year since I stopped relaxing my hair.  It’s been an interesting journey of sorts.

My first relaxer was at the age of 10, and every time I received a touch up since then, my scalp would burn. No matter how mild the perm was, no matter how short the time was that people tried to keep it in, I would still get burned. I was just extremely sensitive and would dread the whole relaxing process.

A lot of people ask me why I decided to stop putting perm in my hair; it’s actually a pretty sad story. Last year, I was rocking a very short haircut. I’ve been chopping my hair off since I was a sophomore in high school. Before I cut all my hair off I had long straight hair that went a little past my shoulders. My mom, like many mothers, was really against me cutting my hair at first. Maybe she thought I’d look less feminine, maybe not. But after enough persuading, and me agreeing to pay for it myself, she allowed me to chop it all off…or at least enough for a drastic difference.

I went through every short phase imaginable. When Rihanna got the asymmetrical bob, I got it too. Then she got a cool, short pixie cut. So did I. Halle Berry and Toni Braxton were my hair inspirations too, and because of them, my hair was a wide variety of lengths over the last four to five years. Having a short haircut was hard to maintain because I constantly had to get my hair trimmed. On top of that, it needed to be relaxed consistently to look neat. This was not good for a poor college student on a tight budget.

By Cynthia Alvarez

If you’re wondering how you can keep an expensive weave up without having to struggle with it too much, it’s important to know how to do the following: to prep and care for your real hair before you put the weave on it, to find the right type of hair to use, the best way to style it without overdoing it each morning under the flat iron, and what you should do for your hair when it’s time to take that weave down. Got a few minutes? Check out these tips from celebrity stylist Cynthia Alvarez.

After struggling with my hair from trying to detangle it after washes, trying to keep it from being dry and brittle as a cactus and from falling out my head like some Nair got to it (aka, Drano), it’s just nice to go to the shop and have someone provide some TLC to my strands. You know, someone who actually knows what they’re doing (or I at least hope they do). But the salon experience is not like it used to be, and often you leave later than you planned to, and many times, you walk out that joint frustrated by your experience. I’ve gone to the salon to get just about any and everything done to my head: braids, relaxers, wash and press for my ‘fro, haircut, color (rinse and permanent) and more. And because of crap-tasmic experiences, I’ve had to go through more salons than underwear. If these things occur while I’m in a joint, I’ll say, more than once, it might be time to keep looking. And you should too.

Chances are, you have admired Nadia Vassell’s work on one of your favorite stars and didn’t know it. Celebrity hairstylist, salon owner and entrepreneur, Nadia Vassell  has an impressive client list that includes Rihanna, Chrisette Michelle, Ashanti and Tika Sumpter. She is a trendsetter and innovator in the beauty industry. Armed with beauty and brains, she is much more than meets the eye.

Sporting a bad weave is letting the beauty “secret” out of the bag. Luckily, Nadia has a solution. Known for her mastery in weaving, Nadia is regarded for her braiding technique that allows her to create extremely natural looking extensions. After becoming frustrated with the lack of quality human hair she kept seeing on people’s heads, she decided to take matters into her own hands and start working some mircales. NV Hair Extensions is her premium hair extensions line that is available online at  http://www.nadiavassell.com. And on top of supplying folks with the hair they need, she fixes the messes you make on your own hair. Vassell thinks the “do-it-yourself” method is okay, but there’s just so much you can do on your own before you tear up your hair:

“I think the mistake that most women make with their own hair is believing in the do-it-yourself method,” says Nadia. “Women who opt to doing their hair themselves might be causing more damage to their hair. Ultimately, they have to visit the salon professional to fix the problem they have caused to their own hair.” If you are guilty of this, grab a hat or a scarf and head over to  The Nadia Vassell Salon located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side for a quick fix.