This Black Model Might Be The Face Of 2025 Met Gala, But Still Has a Regular Job to Make Ends Meet
The Sad But Relatable Reason Naomi Campbell Might Skip This Year’s Met Gala Red Carpet
Why Michael B. Jordan’s ‘COOGI’ Sweater Was a Scene Stealer in ‘Sinners’
Fashion Icon Andre Leon Talley’s Best Style Statements
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Killer in the Sack? Why You Might Need to Learn CPR This Cuffing Season
Scenario: It’s a cold winter night, and you’re happily snowed in with bae. You’ve Netflixed. You’ve chilled. You’re now in the throes of passion, but instead of clutching you, all of a sudden, he clutches … his chest? What would you do? Sex has long been one of our favorite winter sports—and has been linked…
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Dapper: Fashioning a Queer Aesthetic of Black Womanhood
“Ain’t I a woman?” Black feminist pioneer Sojourner Truth famously asked that question of an all-white audience of abolitionists and suffragettes in 1861, to point out the erasure of black women from the social “protections” of womanhood. A century and a half later, black women, from Misty Copeland and Serena Williams to first lady Michelle…
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I Am Not Your Token: What Rihanna Taught Us This Week About ‘Diversity’ Casting
This week, one lucky Rihanna fan got an impromptu lesson in tokenism—from the star herself—after they suggested that she include transgender women in her next Fenty Beauty campaign. The new beauty mogul, who rocked the cosmetics industry this past September with her full-spectrum beauty launch, responded kindly and clearly on why even the question was…
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Pigment on Fleek: Why these Juvia’s Place Makeup Tutorials Are So on Point
Makeup and I made friends a long time ago—and we ain’t never gonna break up, either. In fact, all we do is fall in love over and over again. So it was love at first sight when I laid eyes on the dazzlingly rich eye shadow palettes from black owned-and-operated indie brand Juvia’s Place. With…
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Before The Glow Up: The Root Staff Reveal Their Younger Selves in a #FlashbackFriday Series of Embarrassing Photos
It’s never all work and no play here at The Root, y’all. Though we work hard, we always make time for fun—including making fun of one another—because we’re one big ol’ happy, dysfunctional family. And because our family is spread out across the country, most of these hijinks take place on our messaging system, Slack.…
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#NappyGirlMagic: She Left the Corporate Grind and Became America’s Natural-Hair Whisperer
You can see the precision of corporate influence in every crevice. The customers don’t wait a second. Appointments are tightly regimented. All scheduling is online. Kinky Curly Beauty’s Hair Studio in Birmingham, Ala., is like the love child of a Fortune 500 engineer and your favorite girlfriend’s beauty salon, but with more melanin and fewer…
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Treat Yourself … to Some #SelfLove
I’ll bet we’re more alike than different. I’ll bet there have been seasons in your life when you, too, have felt like you had been incredibly blessed with so much, yet still felt a gaping sense of something missing—and you couldn’t quite put your finger on it? For me, this mysterious blanket of emptiness became…
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Make My Nature Rise: Why We Should All Be Using All-Natural Cosmetics
I might look as if I was raised on Champagne, but I need a T-shirt that says, “Raised on Natural Beauty”—because I was raised by a mother who was a totally natural beauty, in every way. My mother grew up on a farm in rural Ohio and was a DIY dynamo before anyone even thought…
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Makeup Mecca: Marjani Beauty Is a Marketplace Made for Us, by Us
Like many of us, entrepreneur Kimberly Smith is a self-confessed “beauty junkie.” This corporate attorney by day is obsessed with cosmetics, yet—also like many of us—wasn’t finding the variety she needed in mass retailers. Out of frustration, the online marketplace Marjani Beauty was born. Launched in January 2017, Marjani means “coral, or she who is…
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Cynthia Bailey Knew She Was Beautiful the Moment She Realized She Didn’t Need Anyone to Validate That Beauty
When you look into Cynthia Bailey’s eyes, what you notice first isn’t how beautiful or intelligent she is (and she is); because with heart and soul, she radiates a warmth and kindness that overwhelm her two most famous characteristics. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Cynthia since she came to New York to become a…