Have you ever spent over an hour in the beauty aisle trying to find your shade?
There's a sense of helplessness that overpowers you. Before you know it, you're an artist mixing foundations, concealers, and lipsticks together to match your tone. Questions like, "Why is bleached eggshell the default?" can have you fuming.
It's no secret that women of color have always struggled to find our correct shade of nude, whether it's lingerie or shoes. The most frustrating experiences occur in the beauty department and if you live in a city that is predominantly white, then you are really out of luck. With that being said, you have to understand why we appreciate beauty bosses, KJ Miller and Amanda E. Johnson, for creating Mented Cosmetics.
Mented
KJ and Amanda not only saw a void in the market that they could fill with Mented, they also broke barriers while doing so. The two have recently been named the 15th and 16th women of color to raise $1 million for their business - a difficult feat for women, but especially for minority women of color. What's even more incredible is that the ladies have gone on to raise a whopping $3 million in funding, as recently announced by Forbes.
"There are lots of reasons venture capitalists back startups, and one that they may not love to admit is familiarity," KJ shared with xoNecole. "At the early stages of a company's life, you're betting just as much on the entrepreneur as the idea, and when that entrepreneur is familiar to you - whether because of their gender, race, educational background or another reason - it's easier to give them the benefit of the doubt. That said, raising capital is difficult no matter who you are, and I'm grateful that our investors were able to see and support the Mented vision."
Mented
The entrepreneurs are clearly making big moves for inclusion in the beauty industry, as well as for WOC in business. We decided to learn more about Amanda and KJ and see what their journey to making the vegan, nontoxic makeup brand Mented Cosmetics could teach us about bossing up.
Why Mented Was Intrinsic:
Amanda: KJ and I met in business school and became fast friends. Post-school we knew we wanted to work together, but we didn't have the idea yet. So with our full time jobs we'd meet periodically to talk through ideas. One night, when we were discussing our issues with beauty, I said, "I've been looking for the perfect nude lip for three years." KJ expressed that it'd been hard for her to find any makeup that she liked and that was our light bulb moment.
Mented
Two professional women with plenty of disposal income should not have a hard time finding beauty products, that's when we knew we had something.
Where It All Began:
KJ: To create a line for a wide spectrum of skin tones, you have to start with a wide spectrum of skin tones - and that's exactly what we did. When we began making the initial shades in our kitchens, we started with ourselves - in fact our top selling lipstick shades are our two favorites, Mented #5 and Dope Taupe - and from there we brought in women of every skin tone we could find to make sure they were all represented in the line.
Mented
The Meaning Behind Mented:
KJ: Amanda and I spent a very long time nailing down the name. Eventually we landed on a name neither of us loved but neither of us hated, and started using it as a placeholder. Throughout the process of developing our shades, we kept referring to how pigmented they would be compared to other brands. We said it over and over to each other, and eventually something clicked - I turned to Amanda and said "Wait...we keep talking about how pigmented our line will be...what if we call it 'Mented'?" - and the rest is history.
Mented
What Sets Mented Apart From Other Brands:
KJ: The thing I love about what we're doing, and how it differs so wildly from our predecessors, is our dedication to everyday beauty products for women of all skin tones.
I think one of my biggest frustrations in the past was the fact that I was only ever marketed to with bright, bold colors.
Mented
I love a bold look as much as the next girl, but like many women, my everyday beauty routine consists of nudes and neutrals. Our nude lipsticks, glosses, eyeshadows and nail polishes are the products you can wear from work to happy hour and everything in between, and we're immensely proud of that.
The Challenge Of Building A Beauty Empire As WOC:
Amanda: Every beauty entrepreneur will tell you that a constant challenge is getting noticed in such a crowded industry. We have to make sure that the message and authenticity of Mented is heard and felt within our target community. It's important that our community feels invested in the brand we're building and the products we're launching. We are redefining the norms of beauty and that is no easy feat.
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Mented For Every Woman:
Amanda: At Mented, we firmly believe that every woman should be able to find herself in the world of beauty. That belief is the foundation for our product development and community building efforts. As a woman of color, I know the frustration and struggle of going into a beauty store and not finding a product that works.
I understand the pain of feeling other.
We wanted Mented to solve that issue for women everywhere.
For more Mented Cosmetics, follow the brand on Instagram. Also check out their website for some nude beauty finds.
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While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
Feature image courtesy
The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
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And although everything from age and hormonal imbalances to stress/anxiety and even low self-esteem can play a role in why climaxing can be difficult, after touring with an organization that dealt with porn and sex addiction for almost 10 years, having countless sessions with married women and also researching and writing on sex for over two decades at this point, what I realize hasn’t been discussed enough is that a lot of women can have orgasms — just not vaginal ones via intercourse (check out “Ladies, Please Stop Pressuring Yourself Over Vaginal Orgasms”).
The next thing that should be brought up more in the discourse is the fact that many women have orgasms — they’re just not always earth-shattering ones (like the ones that you feel when you have, say, a blended orgasm).
Today, we’re going to hone in on the latter point. If you know (that you know that you know) that you have orgasms yet the more intense ones don’t happen nearly as often as you would like, there is something that you can do that has been proven to help you out — and the title of this piece is a huge hint as far as what that is. #wink
How Does Weed Help to Create More and Better Orgasms?
GiphyWeed and sex being a cool combination is not something that I haven’t addressed before. A few years back, I penned a piece for the site entitled, “7 Proven Ways Weed Makes Sex So Much Better.” So, why did I feel the need to write this one too? Because I think all of us (who’ve had sex before) can vouch for the fact that you can have a wonderful sexual experience and still not have an orgasm or the kind of orgasm that you’d prefer to have. And when that is indeed the case, well, something that can help you out is yep, marijuana.
For starters, did you know that there are literal studies to support that weed can help women to have more frequent orgasms? Yep. One article that I read stated that out of almost 400 people surveyed, 52 percent said that they had trouble climaxing; however, after a bit of weed use, orgasm frequency increased by almost 73 percent, orgasm satisfaction by 67 percent, and the ability to have orgasms more easily increased by 71 percent.
And since some of these individuals deal with something known as female orgasmic disorder (FOD), because the findings are so significant, there are some states that are actually pushing for FOD to qualify for medical marijuana treatment. Yep, that’s how effective weed use is proving itself to be in this realm.
So, just what is it about weed that makes climaxing a more probable experience for so many of us? For one thing, weed is seen as an aphrodisiac by many individuals. One reason is that it contains properties that help to relax your system as well as intensify the sexual experiences that you have by literally helping to make them feel more pleasurable.
Some studies also reveal that weed use can lower your inhibitions and increase the amount of time you spend engaging in foreplay too. If you add to that the fact that weed also amplifies the sense of touch — well, I’m sure that you get how all of this combined can help you to have not just more but better quality orgasms, for sure.
How to Effectively Bring Weed into Your Sexual Experiences
GiphySo, now that you know all of this, I’m sure some of you are wondering how to bring marijuana into your boudoir in a responsibly effective kind of way. Good question. For one thing, it’s definitely best to start off in small amounts (if you’ve never experienced weed before); you can probably do this best with edibles because many of them are sold in pre-dosed amounts. In fact, although you might think that, when it comes to weed consumption, “the more the merrier,” the reality is actually that overdoing it could decrease your libido instead of elevate it.
Also, it’s a good idea to remember that while CBD is good for ointments and creams that can help to reduce anxiety before sex or enhance afterplay (check out “Sure, Your Foreplay Game Is On Point. Now What About The ‘Afterplay’?”), THC — the active ingredient that is responsible for getting you “high” — is what has a stronger reputation for making sex itself a more pleasurable experience; especially as far as women go. So, what you might want to do is start out with something like a chocolate edible (since it also is an aphrodisiac) with a low amount of THC in it along with a CBD-based lubricant.
Just make sure to keep in mind that edibles can bea bit unpredictable (as far as how high you will get and how soon along with how you will feel once you come down from the high experience), plus, their effects tend to last longer than smoking (edible highs can sometimes last six or more hours while smoking ones are around four or more) — so, if it’s your first time trying all of this out, a night before going to work isn’t a good idea; wait until the weekend instead.
On the other hand, if you’d consider yourself to be a bit of a “weed pro” at this point, you might want to experiment with some different strains of weed. Ones that are somewhat popular in the sexual stimuli department contain what is called limonene. It is actually a chemical that isfound in citrus fruit; however, when it’s combined with weed, not only can it help the weed to taste better, but it canelevate your mood, reduce your stress, andgive your libido and energy levels a bit of a boost as well.
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Listen, if there’s one thing that I’m gonna do, it’s provide a hack to make sex better for you — and there is just too much data out in these streets to not shout out weed as far as achieving quality orgasms go.
That said, if weed ain’t your thing, don’t force it to be just because you read this. There are other ways to have amazing orgasms (check out “15 Women Share Their Personal Hacks For Better Orgasms (And Sex Overall)”). Oh, but if it is (or if you’ve always been curious about it), why not approach cannabis from a strictly sexual angle? At the very least, you’ll get a bit of a euphoric feel. At the most, you’ll have an avenue to experience more of the orgasms that you crave.
Hell, sounds like a win/win to me, sis.
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