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HAIR TODAY: Lopez and Charles

DO YOU think you’re beautiful for a black woman? That’s a question we’ve often asked ourselves at some point in our lives. In a world where the media shows desirability in the form of whiteness, we’ve been conditioned to feel lost in the mix, as we stare in the mirror at our own intricate, unruly hair and wonder where we fit in.

Thankfully, those days are coming to an end. With numerous social media accounts and blogs dedicated to the natural hair movement and black female empowerment, we no longer look to the media for our representation and instead look to each other.

However, even within these #blackgirlmagic moments, hair texture discrimination still exists amongst us, yet, no one seems particularly keen to address it.

Two women who are ready to speak openly about this are Jay-Ann Lopez and Patrina Tri Charles – the founders of the very popular blog and YouTube Channel CURLture. The two twenty-something British Caribbean women, who’ve been best friends since they were 14, boast over 39k followers on Instagram, and use their platform to share their support of black owned businesses, natural hair, culture and more. “We really make time to get everything done,” says Tri. “I sometimes finish my day job, come home to work on CURLture, go through emails, work on the weekends – we do it all.”

“But we just make it work though,” chimes in Jay. “It’s not a chore when you’re passionate about something. You just get it done.”

While the ladies are currently running their own social media empire, they’ve decided to branch out into the literary world with their self-published book KINK, a book that combines powerful photography and uplifting poetry to inspire black women.

“Working on this book was such a challenge, but the highlight for me was doing the photo shoot and seeing these women build their confidence in front of the camera,” enthused Tri. “It was such an empowering day to shoot them, and it resulted in some beautiful imagery.”

The images featured in KINK are undeniably striking. Women of different ages and hair textures fill the pages, accompanied by some inspiring poetry that reinforce the wide spectrum of black beauty across the diaspora. “We wanted to include women of all ages, because it shows the various range of women from those with short hair, to dreadlocks, afro hair to kinky hair and more.” continues Tri.

DOUBLE ACT: Jay and Tri

From the photography to poetry, cover art to promo, Jay and Tri put every aspect of this book together. The double act are lucky to have such strong, separate skills – Jay with poetry and Tri with photography – that the creation of this book was everything they wanted, without requiring the support of sponsors or a publisher.

“From my understanding, when you have a publishing house you can sometimes lose a bit of your autonomy and ownership of your product and we didn’t want that,” asserts Jay. “Even when we were reaching out to people to sponsor us, they were coming back to us and saying we can support you, but how about you put this in the book,” continues Tri. “We decided straight away that they could keep their money, and that KINK was our thing.”

“We talk about texture discrimination and black beauty candidly on our blog and online. So how weird would it be to produce a book that isn’t genuine? It would be a total contradiction,” says Jay.

While the representation of people of colour has certainly improved, the pair are keen to acknowledge that all-encompassing terms can still discriminate against black women. “Terms like women of colour can still alienate black women,” says Jay.

“So with that, we wanted to create this book directly for black women. To say this is by black women for black women is a big thing, and there’s no questioning that this book is definitely catered to you.”

In a world that is slightly more ‘woke’, black women can still be undermined and discriminated against – even by our very own. What KINK does is address black women directly and provides a visible way beyond social media for women to see themselves front and centre and free from stereotypes. “People so often try to project black women as ‘strong’ but we are also allowed to be vulnerable, soft, and to hurt,” says Jay. “So this book doesn’t force black women into a box, it shows a range of emotions to survival mechanisms, and exploring vulnerability.”

Towards the end of the interview, Jay mentions a poignant quote, which encapsulates the essence of KINK and a personal motto that the ladies live by. ‘Don’t put your pride on the backs of men and women who wish nothing but to destroy it.’
“So for us, this means you should do for yourself and read the things that are created for you, by you and that’s why you should read KINK.”