My favourite pictures from Le Coil. Five of these pictures have already appeared elsewhere on my blogs.
Nina Keita, Ivorian model
Angela Davis, American professor
Jessika M’Bengue, French model
Pharah Y, Swedish clothes designer
“Frame” by Dawn Okoro, American artist
Res, an American singer, with Talib Kweli
Cassandra Wilson, American singer
Tara (model) and Nydia (graduate student) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Naimah, writer from the Lower East Side in New York
Alexandria, make-up artist from Soho, New York
Pictures by Brianna McCarthy, who blogs at Passion Fruit
Sharri in Soho, New York, who blogs at The Brisk Convergence
See also:
- Le Coil
- natural black beauty #1 – whose pictures come mainly from Gorgeous Black Women
- Angela Davis
- dreadlocks
You are on a roll today, LOL!
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I am in awe of Valerie June’s dreads.
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so cool.
I wish more black celebrities would wear their hair natural- i think its a sexy look
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Lynette,
My mother said the same thing. She didn’t find Solange attractive before but says that she now finds her stunning with her short-cropped natural ‘do.
I love Res and Cassandra Wilson.
I think Abagond should look up Muhsinah, she’s a singer/songwriter/beatmaker from D.C. She has very long natural African hair and a very nice smile.
Janelle Monae is another beauty. With a pompadour ‘fro!
In any event, “natural beauty” is usually just as much of an illusion as “glammed up” beauty.
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Yeah I am so glad solange is not wearing nasty wigs like her sister
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yeah, beautiful hair
Esperanza Spalding, Esperanza Spalding
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India Arie looks particularly stunning.
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^ I agree. What beautiful bone structure and profile she has.
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This is great! Such an array of black beauty. Jessika M’Bengue, never heard of her, but she is stunning.
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Lynette,
I agree. I also feel the same way about a lot of women I see. I think a shorter do shows off their beauty more. For some, long hair hides it. R&B singer Ciara is another example of this. I saw a pic of her with her natural short hair and she looked a lot better than she does with the long, straight black weave she usually rocks.
I never found India to be particularly attractive. But that picture of her above is very nice. She looks very nice in white.
Tanika Ray, host of “Extra”, is another natural beauty.
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and of course india arie has the song- I am not my hair
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Mynameismyname said:
“I never found India to be particularly attractive. But that picture of her above is very nice. She looks very nice in white. “
Same here. I do not particularly go for her, but at times she looks great.
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Solange is absolutely stunning, wow, thinking of chopping it all off but not all of us can carry of such a look.
Why don’t I know that Ivorian model at the top? She is gorgeous! 🙂
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MerriMae,
Consider having it short on the sides and back, with the top shaped to fit your face. I like a Isosceles trapezoidal look; the top being the longest side.
Sort of like my avatar, only flat on top:)
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MerriMay,
Sorry I misspelled your name.
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Good idea Hathor;) Rihanna- like maybe or is she sporting a mo- hawk? Now that would be brave, I’d be afraid of the lack of versatility with that look though 🙂
Now that would go down a storm at work, LOL
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don’t forget the uber talented Amel Larrieux.
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I love having natural hair. I enjoy being able to go from natural to straight. You can do many things with it, especially when it’s long. I’m curious as to how I would look with a short crop.
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the women look beautiful. i didn’t think solange was all that pretty to begin with, weave or not but i do admit she looks better with the bald, natural look. being black sure is beautiful and i love it.
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plus it’s great to wear natural hair but it’s hard to keep up at times, well for me it is because i have really thick hair.
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I met Dawn Okoro last week! She is a fantastic artist. 🙂
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Alexandria is beautiful. Thanks for including IndiaArie I love her songs.
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Solange looks gorgeous! Agreed. She is rocking with the short hair. The extensions covered up her beautiful face too much
All the other girls with natural hair look gorgeous as well. Afros are very beautiful. The look is just not marketed as well as straight, long hair.
But times are changing. I think by the end of this century we’ll see White people going crazy with supercurly perm to get the Afro look just like how they are attempting the big bottom and bee-stung lips look now which were not fashionable a little while back
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love the le coil website one top fave hair websites.
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If many black females could manage their ‘hair’ naturally, I am sure they’d wear it that way.
Kinky hair is impossible.
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Yeah, India Arie and Solange are not beauties, but they look good here.
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Another beautiful post!! Just went natural last October – but my hair is nowhere close to being as pretty as those in your photos.
Afros are the bomb!
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Beautiful. Looking at these pictures makes me wish my mom didn’t make me relax and perm my hair.
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If many black females could manage their ‘hair’ naturally, I am sure they’d wear it that way.
Kinky hair is impossible.
Not so, at least for me. As with anything, practice makes perfect, well almost. I’ve had relaxed hair and natural hair. The comparison in regards to which was easier to manage are stark. Managing natural hair is way more easier than with the relaxed hair. I now have locs. Before that I was natural for ten years or more and it was a matter of wash and go. With the relaxed hair, there was constant frustration even though it was funny in hindsight. Hell, I once burnt my head with one of those wands or whatever they are called!
I had to keep it up constantly with the following implements of torture: the wand, akin to a branding iron, I burnt my scalp and fingers!; curlers, try sleeping with them on, and try not to fall out of bed when you hang your head over the edge in order not to experience discomfort.; gheri curls, remember them? You had to put a plastic bag on your head in order to not wake up drowning in grease or whatever the hell the stuff was they put in those products. It looked and smelt like something out a a horror film!; The considerable fortune spent on products, none of which worked half the time; The considerable expense of going to the hairdresser once a week at least in order to maintain your hairstyle; On days when I could not do my hair, my hair looked like Phyllis Diller’s on a bad day. Finally, I said “Fcuk this” and never looked back! Short or long when natural, it was a case of wash and go and minimal use of products as less is best in my estimation. I forgot to mention that other implement of horror the blow dryer, I almost blew my hair and head off with that one! So for me, natural is better. God bless the women who can do their own hair without the expense, implements, and products needed to maintain one’s relaxed hair because I sure as hell couldn’t! I am of course speaking for myself as everyone’s experience is different.
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Herneith, your post have be lmao @ the jherri curl. I remember seeing ppl walking down the street with a shower cap on so the gel or whatever wouldn’t dry out or drip on their clothes. Remember the scene from Coming to America on the couch? The jherri curl had to have been the deepest low in the quest to make kinky hair manageable.
Thanks for the laughs and memories..heheheh.
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Sometimes you forget to list black people who come with natural curly hair, from Senegal, Central Africa, South Africa, Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, Comoros, Somalia, Madagascar, Soudan…. The cotonny hair is one type of natural black hair but there are many black people outside America & Caribean, South America that come up with different texture of hair and has nothing to do with mixing with european/arab or so. Just like the shades, afro people hair varies from coarse to straight. And same with the body shapes and features. There is so much variety of black people that it is really difficult to establish specific type as the “so called” black natural type. Dark-skin, wide nose, wide bottom, large lips and coarse hair is not the “original and unique authentic Black african type … and no in West Africa it is not the norm either. Have also consider black arabs? They can come with so called west african features and coarse hair and dark coffee skin or come with so-called east african features, with light skin and thin nose. But no there is no homogeneity within that group either.. you can check gulf (saudi, kuwait, oman….) football players for pointers.
As much as I like to read this blog I am sometimes irritated by the seclusion of the Black identity (physical) to one corner. Being the original human type, it is expected to have as much variety as possible in today’s world. The best example is to look at afro-descendant and their features, they are a reproduction of what existed already. And mixture with other group hasn’t affected that much since today for every afro-US, afro-Caribean, afro-south american, you can find the perfect match in the mother country. from the light-skin version to the dark coffee. The only category you will hardly find (even in Africa except some groups like pygmees that did not mix with other tribes or type of african) is the original black that left the continent 40000 years ago and reached Australia.
When you look at it closely, and actually visit the 53 countries of Africa, you’ll see that diversity. You will also find people african people with light eyes (brown, grey, green, blue eyes. rare but exist. You have some region/villages in central africa plagued with the brown eyes syndrome and has nothing to do with mixing either. If a deeper study on African people (far from Eurocentric & persian perspective) was done, it will clear up many things.
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The model Tara in this post went to my high school. She was year above me and used to run track with me. She and her group of friends were like big sibs to me and my group of friends since there was just a handful of black students in our prep school. She’s very smart too. Go Tara!
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Ps Kohler I completely agree with you. When people say “traditional African features” and site them as wide noses, full lips, dark brown skin, kinky hair, etc I’m often taken aback because Africans are the most genetically diverse people on the planet. About 99% of the diversity in the human genome is found in Africa (and a lot of that is Sub-saharan Africa). Any feature that is present in the human population, even if considered a feature distinctive of another race, is present in African populations-originally. So to say something is an “African” feature is a very simplified way of looking at Africa.
And this even happens with intelligent people who should know better. Several days after me graduate school class talked about the diversity of polymorphisms in African populations I had a friend who said that the Navi in Avatar looked “African”. I was stunned into silence ’cause I just keep thinking, “what do you mean “African?”
For example: It always amazes me to look at pictures of Khoi-san people and see the high cheek bones and almond shaped eyes often seen in East Asian countries. But those features originally came from an African population. Africans are the genetic wealth and a genetic library for the human population.
However people seem to be stuck on stereotypes and seem incapable of looking at the world beyond the common reductionist views.
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Tara is very pretty.
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I agree. Does she have a website?
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I can find out. I haven’t seen her since I moved away from DC for college, but I think my other friends may have seen her recently.
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B,
I see it too. Those features definitely originated on the african continent. But people are comfortable with stereotypes because that means that they don’t have to admit the truth about anything. I have those same facial features and when I used to relax my hair you couldn’t pay people to believe that I wasn’t part Asian or Indian. Why couldn’t I just be fully black? I am. And when I explained that they still didn’t believe me. Now that I wear my kinky hair, I guess that erases all doubt. LOL Now I know that black americans because of slavery may have a mixture of some sort but I see people with the exact same features who are from Africa with no mixture. Everyone knows that the all features originated on the African continent but no one is going to admit it publicly, especially since black people are “suppose” to be the least attractive.
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I would marry that Naimah woman in 1 week. She is my type of woman.
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The strange thing is, I feel the same way about her.
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Thanks for posting these pictures. I need inspiration to take down my braids this weekend!
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Im just glad more black women are starting to embrace their natural hair, despite the negative views that are sometimes thrown at them-particularly by our own.
It’s beautiful..our natural, kinky hair.
I and meany of my friends have found that other people, who are not black, often comment on how our hair, naturally, looks so nice and “how did we get our hair to do that” lol It’s funny a lot of non black people think black people’s hair is naturally straight, not curly as it most often is.
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:many
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Solange, you are exquisite!
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Abagond, you should do a post focusing on natural hair.
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I love this blog and this topic! Solange, India Arie and Angela Davis look great with their natural hair!
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Hi,
I would like to use some of your photo’s for a publication –
Let me know if that is possible.
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