Vendor Team
Self-care is a concept that has been around for a while, but has become one that we hear about almost daily in the last few years. Self-care, simply put, is the action or actions one takes, on their own, in order to achieve and maintain physical and mental well-being. We are often urged to exercise and maintain healthy eating habits in order to achieve our best physical health, but traditionally, not as much is said about mental health.
In the last few years, we have been increasingly bombarded with images of the state-sanctioned murders of Black lives; displayed for public consumption in viral videos, like a virtual public lynching. As a result, it has become more important than ever that Black folx take care of their whole selves, with a strong emphasis on mental health. This is where self-care comes into play.
Self-care does not look the same for everyone. Some practice self-care by taking deliberate actions such as:
- Going to the spa
- Setting time aside to relax
- Meditating daily
- Unplugging from social media for a certain time period
- Making sure that autoplay is not an option when online
- Not watching the news
- Blocking people and sites that routinely post police brutality videos
- Finding a good therapist
- Setting boundaries in personal and/or work spaces
I would like to suggest one more to add to your personal list: Buying Black.
James Baldwin famously said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time”. To be sure, Baldwin was speaking about the United States, but many of our counterparts all over the world face varying degrees of the same issues as we do and are speaking out as well. Our constant state of outrage has been noted and has led to a phenomenon that I personally call “unintentional-intentional racist marketing” or “banking on Black outrage” for short.
It works like this: Company A has a new product and they really want to get the buzz out. They want marketing that will really be on everyone’s minds and go viral with little or no effort on their part. Here’s an idea! Let’s make an ad that is slightly to hugely offensive, and will piss off Black folx. They (the Blacks) will then do all the work in getting our product and name out there, by posting, reposting and writing thinkpieces about it. We will then post a non-apology apology, and our actual target audience (racists and people who don’t see color <–read as racists) will come to our defense and point out that we apologized and it was just an honest mistake. And since it was just an honest mistake, we shouldn’t be punished financially; so they in turn, buy a bunch of our product to show us that they understand and that they are on our side. Free advertising and lots of money in our pockets: #winning! While some believe that incidents like this are due to a lack of diversity in the marketing departments of these companies, these incidents are starting to happen so frequently, that it cannot be ignored or considered a fluke.
Recently, a nail polish company, decided to employ this type of marketing to promote their newest nail color. You can read about it here or not. The result was exactly as expected. Anger! Outrage! Thinkpieces! In their non-apology apology, they claimed that hip-hop made them do it.
I laughed.
Long and hard.
And I’m still laughing several weeks later.
Not because I thought it was particularly clever, it wasn’t; but because they couldn’t touch me there.
Why?
Because one of the many ways I practice self-care is buying Black; and one of the products that I have consistently purchased from a Black-owned business, for the last year or so, is nail polish. Whenever I go get my nails done, I cart my little box full of nail polish, base coat and top coat to the nail salon with me. Every single time. There is nothing that beats the feeling that I get as the color goes on, knowing that it was conceptualized, brought to life; mixed and bottled by a Black woman. I encourage you to try it.
Here are eight Black owned nail polish companies you should know about.
Photo via Triple O Polish. Follow them on IG here
Photo via Pear Nova. Follow them on IG here
Photo via Mischo Beauty. Follow them on IG here
Photo via Land of Cre. Follow them on IG here
Photo via O So Dollish. Follow them on IG here
Photo via D.I.D. Nail Paint. Follow them on IG here
Photo via Ginger and Liz. Follow them on IG here
Photo via Lisa Lacquer. Follow them on IG here
End notes:
- This is not an exhaustive list of Black-owned nail polish lines, by any means. If you have a favorite, or are launching one, please feel free to leave a name and/or link in the comments.
- To see a particularly clever use of hip-hop to name products, check out The Doux, a Black-owned hair care line, here. Follow them on IG here.
- People get uncomfortable when one speaks about racism and white supremacy, even Black folx. They becoming mocking and claim that it really isn’t that bad and that people are using these things as a crutch. Here’s the deal…racism and white supremacy are facts of life. They exist and they affect people in varying levels of terribleness. But we thrive. In spite of and despite it all, we absolutely thrive. Never forget that.
- To read some more about self-care, check out this website.
- Looking for a therapist of color in your area? Try here.
- I leave you with this from Audre Lorde, from her book, A Burst of Light: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Let me know below in the comments how you practice self-care in your daily life. If you don’t practice self-care, set the intention to do so and follow through. Take care of yourselves and as always,
xoxo with consent,
Kay
This post originally appeared on Kay in Bloom.