Style Star: Julia Sarr-Jamois

Julia is a style star because she displays a good mix of edgy and casual attire. When I look at style stars, I look for someone who just has fun with fashion and it shows with Julia. She is  half French and half Senegalese and was born in London. A fashion stylist who previously worked at Wonderland magazine as an editor and now works at I-D magazine as fashion editor-at-large, according to her instagram. I remember seeing her in some blog a few years back and she has become my fashion inspiration! I mean look at her fro!  

juliasarrjamoislove.tumblr.com/

Citizen Couture

  

 Photographed by Yuval Hen & Nathan Rissman for Plastic Dreams  Issue 06 - S/S 2011/2012

http://juliasarrjamoislove.tumblr.com/

http://juliasarrjamoislove.tumblr.com/

http://juliasarrjamoislove.tumblr.com/

http://juliasarrjamoislove.tumblr.com/

         

Whose style do you envy the most? Leave a comment below, and maybe they can become the next style star!

How to Be Confident with Jaundice Eyes

I write this article on a bad day. I have sickle cell as I've stated before and with all the emotional and physical pain that comes along with it jaundice is one of the consistent problems I have. Today I came in late for class and missed a much needed quiz to boost up my grade, I encountered two of my classmates avoiding me despite the fact that I was just walking like everyone else and had no intentions of talking to them anyway. In addition to that, I forgot my money to buy sushi, an energy drink and embarrassingly walked out of the store  with my lunch left behind at the counter. I know these all seem trivial compared to the  chaos that goes on in the world.

However these mishaps seemed to flood my mind as  I drove back home. So when I hopped on my laptop in my room and searched "how to be confident with jaundice eyes, " I was looking for reassurance.  There needed to be  something to kick me out of the funk, to know that everything would be okay, and yet I got nothing. The same emotion that surrounds my inner thoughts come attacking. It's the same disappointing feeling I get when I Google "makeup for jaundice eyes," or dare I type "how to cure jaundice".

I've been dealing with this tug of war since  middle school. When will I just accept my fate? I know that my  life wouldn't drastically change if I woke up suddenly with milky white eyes. However, it would be nice to be able to look at someone in the eye, without awkwardly looking away. Or have someone understand how you feel.

This is just me being dramatic I assume, I mean I know about the man with no arms and legs who just got married and now has a child. However, sometimes I can't help but to think these stressful reminders. In our world, we often ban this thinking as  if it were a selfish thing to do: talking about your problems.

Yes, I write this article on a bad day. So, maybe tomorrow I will feel differently, maybe tomorrow won't be as awful. That's how I have to think to get through this life.

Natural Hair: Transitioning



That's my hair guys!



           I am transitioning to natural hair from relaxed hair. I wanted to transtition since I watched that "special" episode of The Trya Show about natural hair. Does anyone remember the theme song? "I'm coming out! Tyra! Tyra!" Anyway, that was when I was in high school but I was too scared to go natural because I thought that if  I were to go natural I would have to chop all my hair off! I don't know about anyone else, but I don't look good with  short hair--I think.  You see I was the girl with "good hair" my hair has always been long since I could remember ( even reaching to my butt) and I remember when I was in the fourth grade, and some ghetto child argued with me about my hair on the school bus.

    She turned around and opened her big mouth "Yah hair is a weave! That can't be yah hair!" I was peeved then, but I laugh at it now because although it was the hair growing out of my head it wasn't the texture God gave me. And since my hair was relaxed at a very young age (since 5) I could understand her confusion now. But anyway, that is why I am transitionining because I think it's weird that I am in college now and I do not even remember my own texture. And growing up in the late 90s and early 00s I realize that this is the case for a lot of African-American woman.



Me as a kid

                       
                                                  
   Now six months earlier I was looking at the website blackgirllonghair.com and I was amazed at all the glorious crowns that the natural-haired woman were wearing and I wanted my own glorious crown. So, without hesitation I decided to just not relax my hair that week like I was supposed to and now fast-forward to today, I am still happy about my decision. I can't stop touching the different ringlets of coils, kinks, and curls that are my hair. I wish I was always natural but this experiece, although hard at times, has made me appreciate my own set of curls.

   What other race can say they have African-American hair? So why, should we be ashamed of it? Because of what the media depicts as beautiful? Please! I dont care what anyone says my hair is unique and I rather have this hair then any of  those models in the before-and-after hair commercials. Now, I have been transitioning for six months now, and I would like to make it to a year at least.

    I used to think transitioning meant cutting inches off every month, but some don't and even transition for three years and don't cut off any of it until the "big chop".  I'm not saying that's the correct way but instead of cutting off as I go, I am trimming my hair. So far my only problem is that my hair has different textures all over, and my hair in the sides seem longer than the hair in the back. Hopefully, I will henna my hair tomorrow for the first time and see if it will my make my hair stronger and promote more hair growth. Now, let me go back to my nasty habit of feeling my kinks, coils, and curls.

Thanks for reading, and share please!


    

What is Beauty?

                                      
    Hello, guess what? The Mayans were wrong, which is  spectacular depending on who you ask. I just recently read an article on The Frisky titled "Mirror, Mirror: You ARE Pretty Enough to Find Love". It is all about accepting yourself and not worrying about being "beautiful" because there is a type of love for everyone. You know, all the stuff our elders try to teach us. However, I have been reading Iyanla Vanzant's book "One Day My Soul Just Opened Up" and it is a daily self-help book that is meant to be read in 40 days. I am on my sixth day, and the day is titled Creativity.I don't want to give you too much details, but   in this chapter I learned that I can always change my mind.

         I have always had a very negative way of thinking, maybe I inherited that from my dad. Anyway, this negative thinking stems mostly from my physical looks. You see I have sickle-cell anemia, which is a serious illness. It  can cause me to get physically weak,  have excruciating pain and has caused me to spend most nights in the hospital as a child.

      Besides the frequent hospitalizations I received, I had a creepy,green, slimy appearance that used to make me shudder whenever I saw it. It was in the whites of my eyes, you know, the ones that people first notice in other and it's called jaundice. Jaundice appeared right in middle school ( not a good place to start), and I remembered the guy I had a crush on back then make fun of my  eyes and it caused me to cry severely in front of him. I also remembered  in my last years of high school some kid would always ask me if I had drugs. It wasn't in a nice way, but very harsh and taunting. Those weren't the only two, for other followed suit and made sure I always new my eyes were a yellow greenish color.

                                    
      I never understood why people made fun of me, I was shy (still am)  but very nice to others. However, in those years of bullying I stood up for myself once, which resulted in a fight. But other times I just stood there taking my parents advice, which was ignoring them, but it did not help at all. So I thought that I soon as a graduated from high school that there would be more mature people and bullying will have no avail.

     I was wrong in fact the first year of college was spent worrying about what others were thinking of me. I still get teased and bullied, in fact the other day I was at Walmart and someone busted out laughing saying that "I look like a stick" . But guess what? It doesn't bother me now. Because I have a positive mind that loves every inch of me. It's hard, and it is not overnight that you will wake up loving yourself like that. I still struggle from time to time, but I just pray to God to hinder my negative thoughts and to love everyone instead of hating everyone and everything like before, and it helps.