Natural Hair on the cover of the next Essence!

Not just the cover, but there's an article on the inside. Cool.

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AWESOME; can't wait to get mine in the mail!

I love that actress but I have a feelings that's a wig

Cool. I may pick up a copy this month!!!

Even though she is rocking a wig, I am gonna pick it up too.

It's a wig, but I'm talking about the article about natural hair. Too her left it shows they'll be featuring natural hair.

Renny wrote:It's a wig, but I'm talking about the article about natural hair. Too her left it shows they'll be featuring natural hair.

I'm glad natural hair is being feature!! However, I am a little skeptical. I hope the article was written by a REAL natural hair person.

Girl, we'll see. There's lots of natural hair in NYC, and lots of product companys like KBB and Carol's Daughter, Jessies, etc. so...hopefully they consulted some experts.

I actually hope they show pictures of people with all hair types. If I had a $1 for every person who told me I went natural because I have the right hair I could buy everything on my P.J. pending list. Some of our sisters just need to see the versatility of all our hair. Type A may look great in a wng, but can't hold a decent twist out and Type B may twist great, but not curl, so it's all a challenge. Education is key.

Renny wrote:I actually hope they show pictures of people with all hair types. If I had a $1 for every person who told me I went natural because I have the right hair I could buy everything on my P.J. pending list. Some of our sisters just need to see the versatility of all our hair. Type A may look great in a wng, but can't hold a decent twist out and Type B may twist great, but not curl, so it's all a challenge. Education is key.

Me too.

I'm skeptical too, but will check it out! I have a subscription so I just got the special edition hair issue in the mail. Have you seen that one? Monica is on the cover. I wasn't inspired by the natural styles in it though.

Hhhhhmnmnmnm....interesting. I'll have to check it out.

So I picked up the Essence on Thursday and finally got a chance to look at it last night. I let my impressions marinate overnight and I think I've resolved that they did a fairly good job.

What I liked

I liked the "Style File:" piece. Great pics of natural hair. Especially the locs. Would have been nice to see somebody with twists and someone with a twist out.

The salon feature in "Hair News" was cool because I really only expected them to talk about Miss Jessie's shop and they didn't do that. But how did they leave out an Atlanta salon? I mean really. Lots of natural hair here; lots.

The "Know and Tell" transitioning advice was sound and the moisture advice too.

What Should Have Been Included
The blogging community and the YouTube community. Huge miss there.
Products by smaller companies.

What I didn't Like
I didn't like the "Fro Focus" piece. I know this was not the point of the article, but I don't think any permed head would look at the pictures and see that they could go natural based on those pictures. There were only four of them and two of them were not good. People do not go to work everyday looking fierce. If women could see how being natural would fit in their world they might try it. Like I said, I know that wasn't the point of the article. Just my personal observation.

They could have done a better job with the products they suggested on the side also. Loreal EverStrong. Really? I mean, good, it's SLS free, but isn't it fairly new? Have AA naturals embraced it as a product that works for us.

The styling tips were okay, I liked that they talked about moisture and oils, but cocount seems to be a huge staple for naturals. Big oversight there.

There are also quite a few advertisements with natural hair models. Both of the insets have models with natural hair. In additon several of the articles have natural heads featured, like one that is about fashion captures real people and what they're wearing. Four out of the eleven had natural heads and some others.

So I think it was fairly good considering that it's magazine not a research journal.

I'd give it 3.5 curls.

Oh, I forgot to mention it was very cool to see KimmyTube's ad for Luvsnaturals. I hope it pushes her business to the next level. She so deserves it for all the hard work she has done to educate naturals.

@Renny
Thanks for the recap.

@ Renny. I can't wait to get mine in the mail so I could read it. I'm excited they have an article based on naturals because I noticed down here in NYC alot of sistahs r natural these days.


Thanks for the info girl.

Great review Renny!

Renny, excellent review. I picked it up but haven't had time to read the article yet. Thanks......

Renny wrote:So I picked up the Essence on Thursday and finally got a chance to look at it last night. I let my impressions marinate overnight and I think I've resolved that they did a fairly good job.

What I liked

I liked the "Style File:" piece. Great pics of natural hair. Especially the locs. Would have been nice to see somebody with twists and someone with a twist out.

The salon feature in "Hair News" was cool because I really only expected them to talk about Miss Jessie's shop and they didn't do that. But how did they leave out an Atlanta salon? I mean really. Lots of natural hair here; lots.

The "Know and Tell" transitioning advice was sound and the moisture advice too.

What Should Have Been Included
The blogging community and the YouTube community. Huge miss there.
Products by smaller companies.

What I didn't Like
I didn't like the "Fro Focus" piece. I know this was not the point of the article, but I don't think any permed head would look at the pictures and see that they could go natural based on those pictures. There were only four of them and two of them were not good. People do not go to work everyday looking fierce. If women could see how being natural would fit in their world they might try it. Like I said, I know that wasn't the point of the article. Just my personal observation.

They could have done a better job with the products they suggested on the side also. Loreal EverStrong. Really? I mean, good, it's SLS free, but isn't it fairly new? Have AA naturals embraced it as a product that works for us.

The styling tips were okay, I liked that they talked about moisture and oils, but cocount seems to be a huge staple for naturals. Big oversight there.

There are also quite a few advertisements with natural hair models. Both of the insets have models with natural hair. In additon several of the articles have natural heads featured, like one that is about fashion captures real people and what they're wearing. Four out of the eleven had natural heads and some others.

So I think it was fairly good considering that it's magazine not a research journal.

I'd give it 3.5 curls.

My issues came in the mail yesterday and I TOTALLY agree with your assessment. The Fro Focus left little to be desired but the File Focus was nice with the pics of different styles but one thing missing were more pics of twists/twist outs.

I really wish Essence editors would really find out what naturals are really using on their hair and stop pushing those mass merchandise products that often contain ingredients many of us avoid, like L'oreal and Pantene (there are a few exceptions with thes products). They would not only help many African American and women owned businesses but also let people know their options. They did feature the Free Your Mane but what about Bee Mine, Darcys, KBB, Curls, Kinky Curly, Hairveda, Qhemet, etc. There was story on naturallycurly.com about Free Your Mane. Check it out here - http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curlykids/new-product-line-inspired-by-transracial-family.

Anyway, I'm still going through mine but I'm looking for Essence to really step it up.

Renny, thanks for the review. I like Lynnie was skeptical. I was curious too.

I read it and agree with Renny. I would like to add that I thought the model on the cover looked unusually thin.

Naturally Esq wrote:I read it and agree with Renny. I would like to add that I thought the model on the cover looked unusually thin.

Nat,

That's Kerry Washington on the cover. Among many others she's most well know for her role as Ray Charles' wife in the movie RAY. She is thin isn't she.

Renny wrote:

Naturally Esq wrote:I read it and agree with Renny. I would like to add that I thought the model on the cover looked unusually thin.

Nat,

That's Kerry Washington on the cover. Among many others she's most well know for her role as Ray Charles' wife in the movie RAY. She is thin isn't she.

Her hands almost encircle her waist. IMO that does not look healthy.

DvaAuNaturel wrote: They did feature the Free Your Mane but what about Bee Mine, Darcys, KBB, Curls, Kinky Curly, Hairveda, Qhemet, etc. There was story on naturallycurly.com about Free Your Mane. Check it out here - http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curlykids/new-product-line-inspired-by-transracial-family.

I just visited Free Your Mane and I am impressed. I like the different oils in the products. They state their products don't leave the hair greasy and that's a problem I'm having with some of the products I've purchased, like Darcy's and AfroVeda. I felt like I'd fallen in a vat of oil. It was ridiculous. I may try the shampoo and pomade. It also doesn't hurt that they donate to the HollyRod Foundation. That's one of the charities I support.

I also found a link for the ingredients.
http://www.freeyourmane.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/FYM_Ingredient_List.pdf