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Jane Austen Slept ‘Til Eight
*How do I begin my day? I awake at 3:45 a.m. I take a piping-hot shower, followed by a plunge in an extremely cold bath in a tub lined with gold tiles from El Dorado. I read an entire book, then an...
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In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Beauty and Fashion Are a Weapon Against War
Vanessa Jados, a 29-year-old entrepreneur from the war-ravaged city Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is a woman with rather unusual business ideas for her hometown, which has been the...
View ArticleLearning to Accept My Body Hair
There’s a photo of me in a white-and-gold sequined ballerina costume standing with a childhood friend by a ballet barre. We’re backstage at the Scott Air Force Base Youth Center in Belleville,...
View ArticleShine Bright Like a Diamond
When I was seventeen, I begged and pleaded with my mom to let me get a spray tan before my senior prom. My mother didn’t understand why I, a black girl, needed a spray tan, but *I knew* if I was going...
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Tiny Luxury
It was a ritual. Every weekend, growing up in Detroit, my mom or one of my play aunties would take my friends and me to Northland Skating Rink, and what I remembered most wasn’t mastering the art of...
View ArticleRead an Excerpt from *You Have The Right to Remain Fat*
My body used to belong to me. When I was a little girl, my favorite part of the day was when we got home from errands or preschool. I would push the front door open with both small hands and...
View ArticleBlack People and the Beauty of Summer Linen
There’s a summer uniform that I associate with all the black people I know over 40 years old. For the men, it’s two-piece suits, loose pants, and guayabera shirts with chunky black sandals. Where I...
View ArticleAshy Mulatto
Of all the racial anxieties that plagued me throughout my half-Jewish, half-black childhood, few could compete with the stresses I experienced around lotion. Yes, *lotion*. Most white people think of...
View ArticleReady, Set, Mask
Sorry to break it to you, but perfect skin is a myth (unless you are blessed by the skin-gene gods, or filthy rich) — and achieving skin that you feel good about takes daily management. That’s why even...
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Makeup in Transit
It’s Saturday morning, and my friend Marisol and I board the Metro, on our way to a family-separation protest on Paseo de la Reforma, a major thoroughfare in the heart of Mexico City. Marisol is a...
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