Mahalo for the Holidays! Sephora Features Its 1st Afro-Hawaiian Beauty … and So, So Much More

That skin. That glow. That hair. Sephora’s 2017 holiday campaign features a new crop of models—freshly plucked from their very own stores.

We got hip to this via Anne Branigin, The Root’s news fellow, and instantly fell in love with Afro-Hawaiian curve-tastic beauty Taíja, giving us urban-Moana realness. (Yes, we know the character Moana isn’t Hawaiian, but she is a Polynesian beauty, as are Hawaiians, and no doubt wishes she had this mane. We know we do.)

Thanks to the rabbit hole that is YouTube, we were subsequently led to several of Taíja’s tutorials for the brand, as well as to a bunch of her colleagues in the campaign. All are uniquely beautiful, span the Diaspora and, surprisingly, share even more intriguing narratives.

We might clown Sephora for stocking $38 coconut oil on its shelves, but we will equally shout them out for including such a range of voices and experiences in their holiday campaign. Like Moroccan-born Muslim Chaimae, The Glow Up believes that beauty can be a source of peace in the world. We appreciate the world’s best-known beauty retailer leading the charge.