Monday, February 23, 2009

GARTH, Hairstylist . NYC














By Stascha Grande
MAVEN GARTH
SHINE Healthy Hair, Warm Spirit
PASSION Natural Hair, Looks Relaxed 
SALON Ebony Design . NYC

He hails from the "Land of the Blessed" as it is known by the Caribs. GARTH is a native of St.Vincent, north of Grenada, south of St. Lucia, and west of Barbados. 

I1997 he moved to the U.S and began working in some of the premiere salons of Brooklyn and New York City. Though his love and passion was hair, GARTH has dabbled in Retail and the Airline industries prior to becoming the accomplished hair stylist he is today.

A seasoned hair care professional, he prides himself in having a genuine interest in your hair. His hair consultations include evaluating your lifestyle, hair texture, facial features and your hair goals.  GARTH is a 360 degree stylist with a robust affinity for color, bond & weave extensions, precision cuts, chemical relaxers & texturizers, but his newest passion is natural hair care.

"Not a lot of people take the time to do natural hair properly, deep conditioning is standard in my natural hair care services. Straightening natural hair (pressing, flat ironing, setting/blow drying) is time consuming, specialize in helping women grow out their relaxed hair to natural healthy beautiful hair."  GARTH














GARTH on SHINE Summer Magazine Photo Shoot Set with Model/Actress Lisa Branch & MakeUp Artist DeShawn Hatcher, www.deshawnthemakeupartist.moonfruit.com, summer magazine photographer, Sarah McColgan, www.sarahmccolgan.com

Hair by GARTH on Naima Mora of America's Next Top Model, Photographer Nathan Heyward

GARTH is a seasoned salon hair stylist that really cares about your hair. However, please be clear, GARTH's hair repertoire is vast having worked on a variety of print, television, and video shoots to inlcude American Express with Beyonce, Fetish for WWD Magazine, Rip the Runway, Coogi and Shine Magazine to name a few.

His island accent is bold and sexy, his spirit is warm, generous, and charming, but it's his passion for hair, expert consul, service and hair artistry that make 
GARTH Shine's Monday Maven.  

GARTH is available by appointment only, Tuesday - Saturday, 
at EBONY DESIGN, 112 West 27th Street, 7th Floor, NYC 10001 (bet 6th/7th), 212.741.5050.



Friday, February 20, 2009

The Art of Barbering

A BLACK HISTORY SPECIAL REPORT

Barber comes from the Latin word Barba, which means beard.  A barber as defined by Webster's dictionary as one whose business is cutting and dressing hair, shaving beards, and performing related services.  In medieval times, Barbers also performed surgery on customers as well as tooth extractions.  The Barbershop can be viewed as the cornerstone for bonding, yet based on our hair textures and neighborhoods; it often mandates the social aspect of our engagements. 

Today, Barbershops serve as a communal place where men (African American (AA) men, more than any other race, based on our generational disturbances) can engage each other as peers, where nothing is out of bounds for conversation, and where the concept of discovering and breaking it down, goes on.  This forum of dialogue has served as a social, cultural and political tradition for Black Americans.  The Barbershop's symbolism and social activity has greater informative, social and bonding precedence than the black church, schools, or black radio. (1)  Barbershops create an unbiased space to express yourself, on a peer level, in which educational degree or stature is not required.  Everyone has the floor to speak his opinion.  


From Slavery to freedom, barbers have constituted the overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs in the African American (AA) community. In the Pre Civil-War (Pre Emancipation Proclamation, prior to 1865, i.e, before slaves were freed by Lincoln) blacks held a monopoly in the barbering profession, primarily serving wealthy whites, often-prominent businessmen and politicians. Many black barbers served only white customers, and others owned separate shops for blacks and whites. A small capital investment in a barbershop attracted many black entrepreneurs (2).

The attitude and stigma of whites was that the servility was work for blacks. (3) In cities like Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Richmond, Washington, DC, Atlanta, And Charleston, blacks were the dominant entrepreneurs. The most successful Northern black barbers owned exclusive shops, either as separate businesses in the urban white business districts or in exclusive hotels. Both as slaves and as free men black barbers used both monopoly and their white consumer base to their advantage.  Their profession provided them with power, prestige and status in the black community.

Lewis Woodson, 
Barber & Co-Founder of Wilberforce University

AA barbers often used their status and wealth to uplift their community.  Many purchased their enslaved family members or helped build black churches.  Barbers Lewis Woodson and John Vashon co-founded Wilberforce University, in Wilberforce, OH (4) the first all-black university and the oldest private AA University in the U.S.  Even when AA barbers were serving primarily white clientele, their fortunes and status were frequently reinvested in black communities, a reality that made them a center for black life in the nineteenth century.

By early 19th  Century, Northern Italian and Irish immigrants became owners of the previously black owned shops in downtown business districts across the U.S.  This was partially attributed to their persuasion to allow their fellow white customers to become their barbers, while other contributing factors included barber unions, licensing laws, and technological innovations such as the safety razors. The black owned barbershops were displaced from downtown and urban business districts.  



THE STORY OF 
MY LIFE AND WORK, AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
of Booker T. Washington, 1901, he wrote:

"Twenty years ago every large and paying barbershop over the country was in the hands of black men, today in all the large cities you cannot find a single large or first class barber shop operated by colored men.  The black men had had a monopoly of that industry, but had gone on from day to day in the same old monotonous way, without improving anything about the industry.  As a result, the white man has taken it up, put brains into it, watched all the fine points, improved and progressed until his shop today was not known as a barbershop, but as a tonsorial parlor."

The Barbershop remains the cornerstone for African American Culture, unless you are raised in a male influenced family unit or engage in organized sports, (65% of AA households are led by single women) SHINE is clear that this type of male bonding is exclusive and paramount.

In my research of African American barbershops, I realized that by nature of my female presence in the barbershops, I was disrupting the natural flow of dynamics in this all male safe-haven.  I was welcomed, but it was clear that their tongues were stiffened.  I have a great amount of respect for the space where men can commune in their way to discuss social, political, sports, current events;  where they can discover that they can agree to disagree and it stays there; and more importantly where they learn more about themselves and the world we live in.

Shine Supports our Barbershop Brothers!

CHECK OUT THE FEATURED BARBERS IN SHINE'S WINTER ISSUE WITH BARBER FEATUREs including:
Levels Barbershop, www.levelsbarbershop.com/ myspace.com/levelsbarbershop (NYC) , 
female Barber JAZ and Lee Burgess (SC) myspace. lbmasterbarber

1,2,3,4) Lacewell-Harris, Melissa Victoria.  Barbershops, Bibles, and BET, Princeton University Press Chapter 5 (July 13, 2006) co-written by Mills, Quincy T. Asst. Prof. of History, Vassor College

Monday, February 9, 2009

Shine Beauty Snoop | Kimberly Brookins, Beauty Enthusiast!

                                           
 By Stascha Grande | GreenSky Life
SHINE BEAUTY SCOOP is a sneak peak in the bag of tricks of Beauty Enthusiasts.  The must-haves carried in our bags daily to 
SHINE BRIGHTLY!

Shine caught up with Kimberly Brookins, a beauty enthusiasts and sales distributor from South Carolina.  

Kimberly's BEAUTY SNOOP is one of polished sophistication. She prefers a beautified look with a healthy coif, clear skin, enhancing make-up, with well manicured nails.

Kimberly's Shining Product  
Christian Dior Sun Powder Spray 
"I have been using the CD Powder Spray for about 6 weeks, I love it because it gives my face a smooth fresh and glowing sun-kissed look that conceals your beauty flaws."


Kimberly's Louis Vuitton Make-Up Bag Contains

L-R | Christian Dior Sun Powder Spray, 2 Pencils (MAC - Chestnut Lip Liner, Graph Black Technakohl Eye Liner)  1 Shadow Sponge Applicator, 1 Shadow Brush, 2 Pencils (MAC - Engraved Powder Paint Eye Pencil, Chestnut Lip Liner (small pencil), 1 MAC Pencil (point Black - Kim also uses this pencil to create special beauty marks), 4 MAC Lustre glass Lip Glosses (Angel Wing, Morning Glory, Viva Glam V, Elegant Peach), 2 MAC Shadows (Brown Script (top), Falling Star (Bottom), 2 Loreal (Original Volumious Mascara, Liner Intensive), 
3 Bobby Pins, 1 Co. Bigelow Lip Balm Stick, 1 Sponge Round Makeup Applicator


SHINE ON!
True Beauty Shines Brightest From Within | SEBC







Sunday, February 1, 2009

Annie Malone, Millionairess & Hot Comb Inventor!

BLACK HISTORY Beauty . Passion . Life
Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone
(August 9, 1869 - May 10, 1957)

By Stacha Grande





Why Annie Malone Shines?
  • Multi-Millionaire in the 1920's
  • 1st US Patented Hot Comb 
  • Philanthropist:  Howard University, St. Louis Colored Orphans Home
  • Entrepreneur:  PORO Beauty Treatment System Products, PORO College, Finance Company 
  • Annie Malone's Legacy Shines Brightly!
(A 1930's version, www.stonegatememorbilia.com)
Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone, daughter of former slaves, raised in Metropolis, IL, with her eleven siblings.  When her parents died she moved upstate to Peoria with her eldest sister, in 1890.  There, Annie took an interest in hair textures and spent ten years studying hair textures, her love of chemistry and concoctions to improve the goose fat and heavy oils used to straighten thick, tight curls.  These oily products caused damage to the scalp and hair.

In 1900 Annie introduced the US 1st patented hot comb (it precedes the comb upgrades by Walter Sammons, Madame CJ Walker, and Walker's employee Majorie Joyner including French Coiffeur Francois Marcel Grateau's versions).  Throughout the early 1900's Annie grew her brand PORO, a line of non-damaging hair straightening products, hair growers, conditioners, and skin disease reliefs.  PORO, a West African name which means society and culture of physical and spiritual growth and order.  

Her business was solid;  sales and marketing.  Blacks and women were denied distribution, Annie used an alternative strategy, chosing door-to-door / B2B sales, while empowering others to create their own fortunes for that time.  Malone employed over 150 employees.  Within a few years PORO was distributed nationally. She used visionary marketing strategies that are still used today;  press releases, advertisements, and use of women who were hired to both sell products and lend testimony to their efficacy, Agents or Brand Ambassadors of sorts. One of these women was Madame CJ Walker.

By the 1920's Malone was a Multi-Millionaire with an estimated worth of $14 Million, she and Walker were the first women of any race to become self-made millionaires.  Malone and Walker were beauty rivals for many years, as Walker learned beauty working for PORO.  They both started from nothing and literally build amassed fortunes.  Annie expanded her empire by opening PORO College in 1917 in St. Louis, MO.  The first educational institution in America dedicated to Black Cosmetology.  A strict curriculum of persona and poise training for men and women was taught there as well.

PORO Diploma from 1922 (by www.goantiques.com)
In 1926, PORO college reported graduating some 75,000 agents Internationally & Caribbean

Malone was a generous philanthropist donating large funds to different causes including record donations to Howard University and Orphan Homes.  In 1922 Annie Malone gave a financial gift for the construction of a new building to the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, she went on to become President of the home.  Her generosity was endless,  at one point she was reported to have been supporting two full-time students in every Black land-grant college (land granted by the government under the Morrill Act to establish schools) in the nation.

In 1930, the first full year of the depression, Annie now in her 60's moved her headquarters to Chicago.  She suffered financially from the divorce of her second husband, and two lawsuits; a liability claim from an employee and a another suite from a St. Louis newspaper.  The publicity crippled her business reputation and in 1943 the IRS placed a lien on her business. Though she fought it for 8 years, she lost PORO to the government and other creditors took control of her business.

The St. Louis Colored Orphans home was renamed in 1946 to the Annie Malone Children and Family Services Center.  It is still thriving today on Annie Malone Drive in St. Louis, MO.  An annual parade in her name keeps her spirit alive.  Annie Malone passed away after a stroke in 1957 in Chicago.  Her fortune said to have been depleted to $100,000, but her legacy as a beauty professional, entrepreneur, and philanthropist keep her light shining brighter than ever!

Her story is one of vision, business and racial perseverance, feminist power, millionairess, and philanthropic empress. Her plight blazed trails for Carol's Daughter's, Lisa Price and beauty cosmetics mogul IMAN to name a few.  

Shine hails the 1st US Patented HOT COMB Queen and female $Millionaire in the US.

Source:
 
Health Business Directory - BTS Local