Beauty Beyond the Surface

It's time to dig deep.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some sort of a relationship with beauty.

As a child my relationship with beauty centered my mom, who I often watched in amazement as she applied satin-y finished gold lipsticks and metallic shimmer eyeshadows. As a teenager, my relationship with beauty stood no chance against the prim and proper predominantly white Upper East Side school I attended from seventh to twelfth grade. As a young adult my relationship with beauty admittedly centered men, an inevitable result of being experiencing an attraction to men that was mutual for the first the time as a college student. And in recent years my relationship with beauty has been defined by my career as a beauty and lifestyle social media creator.

I can identify all of these deep seeded ways that beauty has impacted my experience in this world—through familial relationships, educational experiences, romantic pursuits, and career transitions—yet when I say “beauty” it usually gets reduced to lip glosses, body oils, and some skincare serums.

Through conceptualizing the structure of this substack, which marks my return to long form writing (my first true love as a creator), I’m reminded of the truth that beauty is more than skin deep.

In the haze of brand deals and the constant hunt for viral moments I’ve lost sight of that.

Between Beauty & Me is an opportunity to dig deeper into all the things I’ve wanted to say about beauty beyond my favorite lip combo or most complimented perfumes (though there is absolutely room for all of that here too.)

It’s the place where I get to explore my relationship to beauty as

• a Black woman

• a Christian

• a Nigerian-American

• a New Yorker

• an only girl sibling

• an older sister

• an only daughter

• a double Ivy league alum

• a law school graduate

• a single woman

• a very soon to be 30 year old

• a traveler

• someone with acne

• someone with dark skin

• someone with “4c” hair

• someone raised in a low income household

• someone experiencing upward financial mobility

• a self-employed person

• a type-A overachiever

• a recovering people pleaser

• a social media influencer

• a girl raised by a single mother

• a multi-hyphenate

• a creative

and so much more…

There’s a lot that impacts my perception of beauty—both how I see it and how it is seen in me.

So let’s talk about it.