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Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Personally, I’m very happy to get to know Forever First Lady Michelle Obama outside of her role in the White House.
We get to see so much more of her personality. And thankfully, it’s more beautiful and authentic as those glimpses we got during the eight years the Obamas were in office.
Since then, there was Becoming and now, Mrs. Obama has launched her podcast, where she speaks even further about her life’s journey.
Recently in a sit down with journalist and her friend Michele Norris, Mrs. Obama spoke about how this current social, political moment, in addition to the health crisis has affected her mental wellbeing.
“My sleep is off too because we’re not moving around as much. So I’m not as tired. I’m going to bed a little bit later. Then I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worried about something or there’s a heaviness. So I wake up about the same time. Not the cracmek of dawn but about 6-7 o’ clock. Then I try to get a work out in. Although, there have been periods during this quarantine where I just have felt too low.
I’ve gone through those emotional highs and lows where you just don’t feel yourself. There have been a week or so where I’ve had to surrender to that and not be so hard on myself and say, ‘You’re just not feeling that treadmill right now.’ It is unusual but it is a direct result of being out of body, out of mind.
And spiritually, these are not fulfilling times, spiritually. So I know that I am dealing with some form of low grade depression. Not just because of the quarantine but because of the racial strife. Just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting. So I’ve had to kind of give myself that, those days, those moments.”
You can listen to the full podcast, here.
Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Personally, I’m very happy to get to know Forever First Lady Michelle Obama outside of her role in the White House.
We get to see so much more of her personality. And thankfully, it’s more beautiful and authentic as those glimpses we got during the eight years the Obamas were in office.
Since then, there was Becoming and now, Mrs. Obama has launched her podcast, where she speaks even further about her life’s journey.
Recently in a sit down with journalist and her friend Michele Norris, Mrs. Obama spoke about how this current social, political moment, in addition to the health crisis has affected her mental wellbeing.
“My sleep is off too because we’re not moving around as much. So I’m not as tired. I’m going to bed a little bit later. Then I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worried about something or there’s a heaviness. So I wake up about the same time. Not the cracmek of dawn but about 6-7 o’ clock. Then I try to get a work out in. Although, there have been periods during this quarantine where I just have felt too low.
I’ve gone through those emotional highs and lows where you just don’t feel yourself. There have been a week or so where I’ve had to surrender to that and not be so hard on myself and say, ‘You’re just not feeling that treadmill right now.’ It is unusual but it is a direct result of being out of body, out of mind.
And spiritually, these are not fulfilling times, spiritually. So I know that I am dealing with some form of low grade depression. Not just because of the quarantine but because of the racial strife. Just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting. So I’ve had to kind of give myself that, those days, those moments.”
You can listen to the full podcast, here.
Wow! It’s been a long time since we’ve had some really big Marvel news but this evening Disney delivered a bombshell: Candyman and Little Woods helmer Nia DaCosta will take on Captain Marvel 2. It’s a great pick, as anyone who has seen her startlingly powerful debut will know. But in the wasteland of 2020 we were not expecting such an exciting announcement.
The first movie introduced MCU fans to Carol Danvers, a cranky alien-powered hero. She was also Marvel Studios‘ first true leading lady–it only took 11 years–and now DaCosta will break new ground as the first Black woman to direct an MCU movie. About time doesn’t cut it, but this is a really intriguing choice that hints at a different tone for the sequel. The first Captain Marvel movie felt like a Phase One film. But DaCosta has a style and power that will lend itself to the more auteur side of the MCU. The films have always thrived when they let directors lead, just look at Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok.
It’s also radical to see a Black director given a movie that deals with a white legacy hero. Of course, the other angle here is that the sequel will rectify one of the biggest mistakes of the original. Captain Marvel essentially ignored the original Black female hero, Monica Rambeau, who held the mantle before Carol. Instead, the MCU gave Carol a tweaked version of Monica’s comic book origin. They hinted that her friend Maria’s young daughter–who also happens to be named Monica–might be inspired to follow in Carol’s footsteps. Perhaps in DaCosta’s hands the first female Captain Marvel will finally get her due?
Disney
We’re really excited about this news and can’t wait to hear more about the upcoming sequel! Tell us your thoughts on Nia DaCosta in the comments below.
Header Image: Disney
The post Nia DaCosta to Direct CAPTAIN MARVEL 2 appeared first on Nerdist.
With 17 years in product development, Robyn Watkins has pretty much seen it all. She’s been a part of some of the most successful and iconic beauty launches to date, and she’s also been witness to the failed attempts that never make it to market. Today, as a product development consultant and CEO of Holistic Beauty Group, she helps brands make magic in the clean beauty space. But don’t get it wrong, she might consult for brands, but she really works for consumers.
“I have a passion for clean beauty. In my background in the corporate space, I was always trying to advocate towards cleaner, safer ingredients, and always trying to go more natural,” she says. “I was the annoying person always raising my hand asking, can we not do this? Can we not use silicone? Can we try this?”
As an insider in the space, Watkins knows that clean beauty can mean different things in different places because it doesn’t have a harmonized definition. She explained that Europe has much stricter standards than the United States as it relates to clean beauty (Canada also has slightly stricter policies.) They ban about 1,400 ingredients that are not banned in the U.S., including carcinogens, mutagens, nitrosamines, silicones D4 and D5 and reproductive toxins (yes, you read that right).
Consumers are actually putting their trust in companies to identify their products as clean. As we’re beginning to see more brands emerging in this space, we’re also seeing more products identified as clean from legacy brands. Even beauty retailers have begun to make this distinction in product offerings on their sites.
Sephora has an extensive list of ingredients that a product cannot contain in order to receive their Clean at Sephora seal, including some known culprits such as parabens, sulfates, phthalates, and formaldehyde, and also more unknown players such as styrene and synthetic fragrances.
“I think it’s important for the consumer to understand what’s important to them with respect to clean beauty and buying brands that align with that.”
– Robin WatkinsBut clean beauty, Watkins explains, is actually not a regulated standard. And her interactions with consumers has taught her that there are many misconceptions about what a clean beauty product really is.
“Clean beauty is a marketing term and it’s an emerging claim that can be defined by any brand that uses it,” she says. “Clean beauty is more like a movement. It’s a mindful decision to create products and market under pillars of human safety, transparency, environmental consciousness and ethics. I think it’s important for the consumer to understand what’s important to them with respect to clean beauty and buying brands that align with that.”
Consumers are also making the assumption that clean beauty and sustainability go hand-in-hand. While Watkins thinks that they should, she also knows that it’s not guaranteed. Sustainability is a multi-faceted category that has levels to it, from biodiversity and carbon footprint reduction to eliminating plastic waste and using renewable or reusable packaging. In other words, like clean beauty, sustainability is complex.
“There’s so much to unpack with regards to sustainability,” Watkins asserts. “But I say [for a brand] starting where you are, understand your carbon footprint, and start to pull back on it from an upstream perspective, meaning how you’re building your product, and then downstream in terms of how the consumer is disposing of the product and what that life cycle looks like.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Holistic Beauty Group (@holisticbeautygroup) on May 8, 2020 at 9:34pm PDT
And that’s where product ingredients can come into play where clean versus non-clean matters. Since the pandemic, consumers have been paying a lot more attention to what’s in their beauty products. Studies show that the online purchase of natural skincare increased by 300 percent at the top of quarantine. Watkins says clean beauty sales are up 25 percent too. People often mistake clean beauty products for natural beauty products, but she says, they’re not the same. And, natural doesn’t always mean better.
“People automatically think, oh, it’s clean, it’s natural, it’s organic. And some products are, but those are two different camps and just know the difference and know that when you see science-based ingredients, it’s not all bad,” she explains. “There are brands that have a blend of natural and synthetic. I highly recommend embracing scientific as the new sustainable. Science based ingredients have huge benefits. They truly are 100 percent renewable, have zero carbon footprint. It really makes sense for the world that we’re living in.”
She’s just trying to do her part to make that world better, one clean product at a time. Her mission is to guide and hold brands accountable, educate consumers—especially other Black women, who are inundated with products that tend to be filled with harmful toxins—and explore the possibility of a new category she calls product therapy, an intersection between beauty, self-care, and mental health all wrapped into effective offerings.
“I try to pour positive intention into the work that I do and with the brands that I work with. I’d like to create more products that have a healing intention—not just holistic products, but products that give positive messaging and don’t drive the consumer to not appreciate themselves or think they’re good enough,” she finishes.
“I like to be a part of projects that really change that narrative around self-compassion and self-love. But I’m just out here, a corporate dropout who decided to take all of my experience and help brands that actually give a shit about what they’re doing. That’s my whole thing.”
The post This Black Product Developer Dispels The Myths About Clean Beauty appeared first on Essence.