The Naturalistas’ Movement

In recent years, women of colour, especially here in Africa have had some sort of epiphany on the beauty of embracing their natural hair. This is truly the age of the naturalista.

A Naturalista proudly promotes the growth of her own healthy hair with the assistance of protective styles such as braids and twists.(www.urbandictionary.com)

Different women of colour, and some of influence even, have publicly  donned their natural hair – and have looked totally amazing doing so. Below are one of my favourite celeb natualista-sisters- Nandi Madida. She looks gorgeous in her natural hair and no one rocks this look better than her.

                                   The beautiful Nandi Madida – the soulful songbird 

Here’s a few pointers we can take from Mrs Madida that helped this look pop out:

• Accessories – with natural hair, your facial features get more pronounced, and accessories will enhance your natural beauty  without “cluttering” your face. The same choker worn by Nandi might have looked a bit much with long flowing hair extensions.
• Colour – have fun with colour!Isn’t she lovely in silver-grey hair?

                         Lupita Nyong’o – undoubtedly the biggest “brand ambassador” of the naturalista movement – photo cred:google

• Boho look – in the first look, Lupita looks gorgeous in that afro look. This is more hip and fun, but I’m sure I have seen images of her glamourising  this on the red carpet too – and still turned heads.

                                 Gail Mabalane – this model-mummy-actress is also on my fave-naturalistas list

• Make- up ; I’m sure you have heard of some conversations on how if you go natural, you need to go heavy on make-up. My view is this, natural hair,  like I mentioned before tends to bring more attention to the facial features, so flaws that could otherwise be concealed by flowing hair tend to stand out. So for that reason, I believe more attention needs to be paid to the face, brows ‘n’ all.

               Tafadzwa Bete-Sasa: Managing Consultant , GoalGetter Consultancy.Training Facilitator, High Performance Coach

• Power – Short natural hair tends to add a flair of power and confidence. Taffy, as I affectionately call her,  has rocked her natural hair for as long as I have known her-beautifully and powerfully so.

Some final thoughts or rather questions? Is the natural hair-movement for everyone? Have you ever experimented with colour on your short hair?

 

Cheers

 

Chi_