Victoria Folusewa, 25, had never had her ears pierced until last year. She decided to take the plunge on a relaxed visit to the mall one day after discovering some inspiring imagery at her local Piercing Pagoda. “They had done this advertisement of this very beautiful dark skinned woman with an afro – she literally looked like me,” Folusewa told POPSUGAR. “She was so happy; she was smiling, her teeth were sticking out. I saw her and I was like, ‘I thought about piercing my ears, maybe I should.'”
At first she was almost disheartened about getting pierced – the baby screaming in front of her online made her doubtful – but it was the photo of the woman with the afro that brought her back and ultimately motivated her. to go all the way. “If it was someone else [in the ad] who didn’t look like me, I couldn’t have identified myself, “she said.” I wouldn’t have told myself that I could do that too. ”
Folusewa, a dark-skinned Nigerian with immigrant parents, has spent six years working as a model in the hopes that her work will help other young black women who look like her feel seen, just as she has. in the mall that day. It’s those experiences that fuel her, and it’s just one example of why so many young black people are trying to make their mark in the beauty industry right now.
Seventeen years Battle of Khalil, for example, launched his own hair care brand, KingCurls, when he was in high school after getting tired of borrowing products from the women in his family. While hair products aren’t technically gendered, they are traditionally aimed at women, which is why he wanted to create something for young men with frizzy, curly hair.
“I just wanted something for myself,” he told POPSUGAR in a previous interview. “I never saw myself on the marketing side of things when I was in stores. I never saw anything that I could relate to, and I wanted other boys to feel empowered when they walked through. the store and saw each other. “
