Who doesn't remember showing up to the hair salon with a ripped-out page from Hype Hair, ready to be transformed? The magazine has been a staple in salons and homes for more than 20 years, giving us edgy editorial spreads with the latest haircare and styling trends, and featuring our favorite style icons. We've seen Eve go from her platinum TWA to her signature braids, Monica go from her "Don't Take It Personal" precision cut to slayed extensions, and all the chic transitions of our favorite Real Housewives. We've also read stories about style trends and techniques from the industry's top stylists.
Today, the brand is set for a major refresh with its new CEO, Lia Dias, a Los Angeles native with her own personal connection to the haircare world. As founder of The Girl Cave LA, a growing chain of beauty supply stores with locations in California and Texas, Dias has always been someone not afraid to take risks and create the change she wants to see. Trained as a social worker and leaving the industry after not finding fulfillment, she took $30,000 in savings to start her first location.
It's been up and onward ever since.
Image by Ashli Brown
"I grew up going to beauty supply stores to get ready for the weekend, you know, on a Friday night," she recalled. "So it was just natural for me. I love being in beauty supply stores, but I always felt like I was never treated like a customer. I always felt like I was being treated with an air of suspicion. I wanted to create something that felt good for me. I'm from Inglewood, so [it had to be] something that felt good for my friends, my sisters. And so I started with the small store. April actually makes six years, and now we have seven locations."
Dias is adding to the growing number of black-owned beauty supply stores in a multibillion-dollar industry that's far from diverse when it comes to ownership. Seventy percent of the nation's stores are owned by Korean-Americans, yet African-Americans spend more than $600 million on personal soap and ethnic hair and beauty aids, according to a recent Nielson report. In other words, we buy a whole lot of products from these types of stores but we don't have a major share of the behind-the-scenes buying power, customer service protocols, community investment or influence.
Dias has been empowering other women in ownership via her franchise model, and several of her stores are female-owned as well. "My husband and I are franchisees of a juice bar called Juice It Up!, and I love the model. I love the support that the corporate office gives us because we knew what we wanted to do but we didn't know how to do it. I would have a lot of women come to me say, 'I want a beauty supply store,' and they'd want to know about how do I get started. I thought, well, why don't I expand the stores?" she says. "My goal is to have stores across the country, but the reality is that I'm a mother of three.
"I have a husband who has a career that I help him and support him through, and I have my own career and ambition. So I knew that I wouldn't be able to run retail stores by myself across the country. I thought about this franchise model and I said, 'This is the best way to [not only] expand the stores, but to also give people an opportunity to get into ownership without having to figure out this beauty supply model on its own.'"
With Dias's model, prospective owners must go through an application process, pay a fee, and invest to start their store. Upon approval, they are given the tools they need to succeed including access to vendors, how-tos on setting up their store, and information on how to run the business.
"We go through the interview process and we really see who will fit the model and make sure that their finances are in line with what it takes to run a store," Dias explains. "Then we approve people based upon their tenacity and what we feel like would be a good fit for the brand. It's [not so much] about how much money you have personally. We really are looking for the right family, the right person, the right partnership that will go well with what we're creating."
Image by Ashli Brown
Dias's venture into acquiring Hype Hair came about in the same strategic way she was able to expand the Girl Cave LA brand. She'd been interviewed for the magazine, and after building a relationship with the magazine's previous owners, she was able to step into the CEO role.
"I'd never get too excited when I have good sales months. I've always put money away. I didn't know what it was, but every time I had these good sales month, I'm like, 'Let me just put this money away.' So by the grace of God, when this opportunity came up, I didn't have to go to a bank. I didn't have to go borrow the money. I had it stockpiled from years of savings from my retail stores, so that when the opportunity came up and it was almost down to the dollar of what I had saved over the last few years, that was another indication to me that this was what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't have to stretch for it."
Due to its built-in audience, long-standing presence in publishing, and popularity in the haircare industry, Hype Hair has served as the perfect opportunity for Dias to get into something that has the potential to continue growing in spaces she's passionate about. "I want to really give a more full picture," she adds.
"We're doing the same things—editorials featuring hairstylists and hairstyles that are on the cutting edge and inspirational—but the other thing that I'm really bringing to the magazine is I want to infuse more of the culture into it."
"We're talking about a lot of women who are in the hair industry and telling their stories because I feel like those stories are powerful, too," she adds. "A lot of the stories that we're telling, we're making sure that we tell them very boldly. We're giving a lot of color. We're giving a lot of things that grab people's attention because this is a digital magazine and what comes down to it is the clicks and impressions. We want to provide useful, meaningful content."
For more about Lia, follow her on Instagram.
Featured image by Joseph Ford/Gifted Mindset
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So, we handpicked one hundred It Girls who embody that palpable It Factor moving through us as young Black women, the kind of motion lighting up the world both IRL and across the internet.
It Girl 100 became xoNecole’s most successful program, with the hashtag organically reaching more than forty million impressions on Instagram in just twenty-four hours. Yes, it caught on like wildfire because we celebrated some of the most brilliant and influential GenZennial women of color setting trends and shaping culture. But more than that, it resonated because the women we celebrated felt seen.
Many were already known in their industries for keeping this generation fly and lit, but rarely received recognition or flowers. It Girl 100 became a safe space to be uplifted, and for us as Black women to bask in what felt like an era of our brilliance, beauty, and boundless influence on full display.
And then, almost overnight, it was as if the rug was pulled from under us as Black women, as the It Girls of the world.
Our much-needed, much-deserved season of ease and soft living quickly metamorphosed into a time of self-preservation and survival. Our motion and economic progression seemed strategically slowed, our light under siege.
The air feels heavier now. The headlines colder. Our Black girl magic is being picked apart and politicized for simply existing.
With that climate shift, as we prepare to launch our second annual It Girl 100 honoree list, our team has had to dig deep on the purpose and intention behind this year’s list. Knowing the spirit of It Girl 100 is about motion, sauce, strides, and progression, how do we celebrate amid uncertainty and collective grief when the juice feels like it is being squeezed out of us?
As we wrestled with that question, we were reminded that this tension isn’t new. Black women have always had to find joy in the midst of struggle, to create light even in the darkest corners. We have carried the weight of scrutiny for generations, expected to be strong, to serve, to smile through the sting. But this moment feels different. It feels deeply personal.
We are living at the intersection of liberation and backlash. We are learning to take off our capes, to say no when we are tired, to embrace softness without apology.
And somehow, the world has found new ways to punish us for it.
In lifestyle, women like Kayla Nicole and Ayesha Curry have been ridiculed for daring to choose themselves. Tracee Ellis Ross was labeled bitter for speaking her truth about love. Meghan Markle, still, cannot breathe without critique.
In politics, Kamala Harris, Letitia James, and Jasmine Crockett are dragged through the mud for standing tall in rooms not built for them.
In sports, Angel Reese, Coco Gauff, and Taylor Townsend have been reminded that even excellence will not shield you from racism or judgment.
In business, visionaries like Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye and Melissa Butler are fighting to keep their dreams alive in an economy that too often forgets us first.
Even our icons, Beyoncé, Serena, and SZA, have faced criticism simply for evolving beyond the boxes society tried to keep them in.
From everyday women to cultural phenoms, the pattern is the same. Our light is being tested.
And yet, somehow, through it all, we are still showing up as that girl, and that deserves to be celebrated.
Because while the world debates our worth, we keep raising our value. And that proof is all around us.
This year alone, Naomi Osaka returned from motherhood and mental health challenges to reach the semifinals of the US Open. A’ja Wilson claimed another MVP, reminding us that beauty and dominance can coexist. Brandy and Monica are snatching our edges on tour. Kahlana Barfield Brown sold out her new line in the face of a retailer that had been canceled. And Melissa Butler’s company, The Lip Bar, is projecting a forty percent surge in sales.
We are no longer defining strength by how much pain we can endure. We are defining it by the unbreakable light we continue to radiate.
We are the women walking our daily steps and also continuing to run solid businesses. We are growing in love, taking solo trips, laughing until it hurts, raising babies and ideas, drinking our green juice, and praying our peace back into existence.
We are rediscovering the joy of rest and realizing that softness is not weakness, it is strategy.
And through it all, we continue to lift one another. Emma Grede is creating seats at the table. Valeisha Butterfield has started a fund for jobless Black women. Arian Simone is leading in media with fearless conviction. We are pouring into each other in ways the world rarely sees but always feels.
So yes, we are in the midst of societal warfare. Yes, we are being tested. Yes, we are facing economic strain, political targeting, and public scrutiny. But even war cannot dim a light that is divinely ours.
And we are still shining.
And we are still softening.
And we are still creating.
And we are still It.
That is the quiet magic of Black womanhood, our ability to hold both truth and triumph in the same breath, to say yes, and to life’s contradictions.
It is no coincidence that this year, as SheaMoisture embraces the message “Yes, And,” they stand beside us as partners in celebrating this class of It Girls. Because that phrase, those two simple words, capture the very essence of this moment.
Yes, we are tired. And we are still rising.
Yes, we are questioned. And we are the answer.
Yes, we are bruised. And we are still beautiful.
This year’s It Girl 100 is more than a list. It is a love letter to every Black woman who dares to live out loud in a world that would rather she whisper. This year’s class is living proof of “Yes, And,” women who are finding ways to thrive and to heal, to build and to rest, to lead and to love, all at once.
It is proof that our joy is not naive, our success not accidental. It is the reminder that our light has never needed permission.
So without further ado, we celebrate the It Girl 100 Class of 2025–2026.
We celebrate the millions of us who keep doing it with grace, grit, and glory.
Because despite it all, we still shine.
Because we are still her.
Because we are still IT, girl.
Meet all 100 women shaping culture in the It Girl 100 Class of 2025. View the complete list of honorees here.
Featured image by xoStaff
"They asked for body products and we wanted to make sure we listened. But also layering fragrance begins with the body routine." The body wash is $33, and the body lotion is $35. Keep reading below to hear more about Tabitha and Chance's new collection, their body rituals, and what makes their partnership successful.
Fridays with Tab and Chance body collection
Marcus Owens
xoNecole: How did you come up with the scents for the collection?
Tabitha Brown: We love warm scents that make you feel sexy and loved. [We’re] both fans of gourmand [scents], including bergamot, vanilla, tonka and chocolate.
xoN: If you could describe your working relationship in one word, what would it be and why?
Tabitha: It's our first time building a product line together and our first time working with fragrance. So having patience with the process and each other has been the best way to build.
xoN: What is your body care ritual?
Tabitha: Exfoliate with a scrub a few times a week, but using a moisturizing body wash daily. After a shower, I spray a body mist that compliments what scent I am choosing for the day. Most times vanilla mist wins because it’s a perfect base for layering. I then hydrate [my] skin with lotion. Then, once dressed, I layer my favorite fragrance, Her Business, first and then His Business on top.
Chance: [I’m] way more simple. Just body wash and lotion and then my cologne and I’m good to go.
xoN: We enjoy watching you two together online, whose idea was it to start 'Fridays with Tab & Chance'?
Tabitha: It actually happened by accident. Back in 2018, my fans had just been asking about how we met, so we did a video answering questions one Friday and people in the comments [asked], will y’all do it again next Friday? And so we did and the next thing you know Fridays with Tab & Chance was born.
xoN: In what other ways do you plan to expand Fridays? Restart the podcast? TV show?
Tabitha: We are working on a lifestyle content show vs the traditional Fridays podcast. More to come soon.
xoN: You do many things together, but what would you say is your favorite quality time activity and why?
Tabitha: We are really simple. We love watching movies or TV series together on the couch or in bed. It’s really one of our favorite things to do together.
xoN: What is your favorite thing about the other person?
Tabitha: I love that he makes me feel safe and how hard he works to be an amazing father.
Chance: I love that she is crazy enough to pursue her wildest dreams.
xoN: What is the key to a successful partnership in business and personal?
Tabitha: The key is knowing that you both are going to change, and giving each other grace, patience, and understanding during those changes.
See more on tabandchance.com.
Feature image Marcus Owens