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The Brown-Skinned Beauty Guru who's Changing the Industy

Jackie Aina began her YouTube channel 10 years ago and just hit the 2 million subscribers mark on the site. She has 900,000 followers on Twitter and 310,000 on Instagram and has dedicated her platform and extensive beauty knowledge to catering to Black women, specifically those with a complexion like hers.

She said that she had trouble finding content for products that matched her skin as well as tips and tricks for contouring, blending, and complementary colors and decided to take the content creation into her own hands. Aina just recently won the NAACP Youtuber of the Year Award and has her own products and collaborations with major beauty brand TooFaced. find her on all platforms @ jackieaina

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Check out St. John's alum Izzie Odigie shaking it up in this fun and informative dance video on OkayAfrica!

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The Grassroots Collective who Fights for Liberation in Chicago

Assata’s Daughters is a collective of young black women based out of Chicago who do and create work to combat the marginalization and violence inflicted on their community. Formed in just 2015, Assatta’s Daughters now successfully sustain three different programs pointed at this goal. 

Their akrele program focuses on girls age 4-12 and workshops with them on important figures in Black history, dynamics of power and oppression, and fine tuning their own leadership skills. 

Their ominira program focuses on girls a little older, 13-19, and teaches them the fundamentals of organizing, mobilizing, and public speech. They do Hands-on grassroots work, participatory workshops, and eventually go on to graduate to Student Organizers. 

Assata’s Daughters also maintain a community garden which allows people to get hands on experience and engagement about healthy living as well as food politics and distribution. 

assattasdaughters.com

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How an 11-Year Old Girl Went From Lemonade Stands to Whole Food Aisles

Meet Mikaila Ulmer! An 11-year old business lady who’s secured her very own brand of lemonade in 4 states through the Whole Foods chain. The lemonade began with her grandmother’s recipes from the 40′s, and incorporates healthy and sustainable ingredients like natural local honey and flaxseed. Ulmer’s success story began when she was able to secure a $60,000 grant for the pitch for her business “BeeSweet Lemonade” on the show Shark Tank. 

Whole Foods too saw promise in her beverage, and inked a deal with her worth $11 million dollars, selling the sweet drink in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Ulmer has recently rebranded and the drink now goes by the name “Me & The Bees”, but you can still find it in fifty-five Whole Foods stores across America. 

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This GirlBoss is pulling up a seat on the Frontrow of the Fashion Industry

Shateria Morgan-El is a Baltimore, Maryland native with an extensive background in the arts. She attended an art school with a focus on ballet and modern dance before readjusting her lens onto the fashion industry. She began her career there as a successful stylist, who eventually expanded into consultation, and ultimately masterminded the successful luxury streetwear brand called FrontRow, which has showed at NYFW every year since 2012. Her designs have been worn by the likes of Tamar Braxton, Rick Ross, Waka Flocka, Trina, Monica, Sessilee Lopez, and more. 

Morgan-El has described the brand as “tomboy-chic” and often plays with elevating everyday street and loungewear with chic touches and expensive textiles like leather or fur. The brand remains fresh, airy, and youthful because of it’s fits and silhouettes, but also sophisticated and expensive looking because of its materials and styling. Shop the collection at frontrowinc.com

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Meet the brains behind one of Twitter’s Favorite Accounts: Tiara Willis

Tiara Willis created her Twitter page twitter.com/makeupforWOC to create a platform from Black and Brown women who were having a hard time finding products that was suitable for their range of skin tones and skin conditions. She would find herself searching through Youtube influencers, Instagram pages, and even products in-store and not see anything that represented herself or people who look like her. Since the pages inception, Willis has amassed close to 145K followers on Twitter. She provides her following not only with product recommendations but also reviews of the products, links to the products at reasonable price points, and uses her page to promote the work of other Black and Brown women including make-up artists, beauty influencers, and estheticians. All of this, and Willis is only a Junior in High School. 

Willis has hopes of expanding her brand even further, into an app, website, Youtube channel and more. Her goal is to grow her passion into a career, and influence major beauty campaigns to be more inclusive.