There's self-care Sunday, and there's Beyoncé's routine, Cécred Sundays - a weekly ritual she coined in honor of her haircare line, Cécred. InGQ’s October cover story, the singer and serial entrepreneur let the publication in on her newest Sunday routine, where she practices self-care.
"I take baths with essential oils. I do acupuncture, cupping, reflexology, and I play my sound bowls with my kids. I make honey, paint, decorate, swim, and design clothes and stages. I have written children's books for my children and design animation. Anything creative makes me happy. I also edit for fun. I genuinely enjoy it."
Following this interview, Beyoncé went viral sharing her entire wash day routine online filled with old and new Cécred products showing off her tresses and her tried and true routine to keep her hair healthy to Cécred's followers. She gave us a voiceover, step-by-step details, and those strands and hair follicles. Okay, Influencer Bey!
Beyoncé's proclamation of self-care and her journey to resting more and prioritizing herself truly echoes the sentiments of Black women all over the world who are yearning for deep rest, and sustainable wellness routines to curate time to pour into themselves and remember that we are much more than the work that we do, we are human beings that deserve to lean into self-preservation.
It's almost impossible to discuss Beyoncé without the acknowledgment of her next-level work ethic, but what does it look like to not just channel her ability to get sh*t done but to do absolutely nothing but care for yourself?
In order to commit to the process, of course, I had to get some Cécred. Their new Hydrating Conditioner, said to instantly strengthen and fortify the hair, was just released, so once I had my hands on that (and cleared my schedule because wash day is just that - a day), I started my day like Beyoncé's with a few additions of my own radical self-care necessities that I think she’d approve of.
The wash day hero has arrived.
Yasmine Jameelah/xoNecole
6:30 a.m. Alexa, play "Church Girl." Daily, I wake up and listen to my church's daily prayer call. My relationship with the church throughout life has been at times..difficult. Growing up a preacher's kid wasn't the easiest experience, but as Bey said - nobody can judge me but me; I was born free.
Actively choosing to heal from church trauma while going to church constantly again at times can stir up some old emotions, but starting my days with prayer never is. It gives me comfort and reminds me that God is with me and that people are praying for me.
7 a.m. I walked my goldendoodle; idk if Queen Bey has pets, but mine is serious about his walks, so we took a stroll together and came home and had breakfast, and I made myself an iced coffee. I use glass can-shaped glasses and straws (it makes the experience more intentional and memorable for me, like I'm at my own personal coffee shop) and sit at my window staring out at the tall buildings in my neighborhood. I usually turn on Girlfriends or Half & Half while preparing for church.
10 a.m. After showering and getting ready for church, I set aside my swim necessities because I knew I'd want to spend some time in the water after service. I've been swimming since I was a little girl. My father taught me how to do it, and it's been my favorite hobby ever since. I put my bag in the living room to remind me when I got home, and headed to church.
11 a.m. I arrive at church and greet my mama, who's also the pastor of the church. She's the first woman in history to be the senior pastor of her church, so it's a beautiful thing to see her living out her dreams. My family is everything to me, and Beyoncé is the ultimate family girl, so what better way to spend Sunday than with your loved ones?
Nothing beats an early afternoon swim.
Yasmine Jameelah/xoNecole
2 p.m. Church is over, and I'm headed to the pool, but before I get into the water, I pretreat my hair before the swim with some water and Cécred Nourishing Hair Oil. As a swimmer, I pride myself on keeping my hair healthy, and in order to protect my hair from being saturated with chlorinated water, I soak my hair in fresh water and apply hair oil to the ends of it. This allows the chlorinated water less of an opportunity to penetrate the hair and cause more damage overall.
3 p.m. During swim time, I love to play music. I swim above and underwater, and I curate a playlist to bring with me filled with soul music and overall music that stills and calms me. I swim for an hour, touch the lights in the pool at each lap, and speak aloud what I want to pray and manifest as I grab hold of them.
Posting up post-swim.
Yasmine Jameelah/xoNecole
4 p.m. Out the pool, and ready for my #CécredWashDay with Cécred's Clarifying Shampoo & Scalp Scrub. I followed up with the Hydrating Shampoo in the spa shower and then applied the new hydrating conditioner! It just launched this month, so I was anxious to try it out in my wash day routine. I'll admit, I don't usually reach for a lightweight conditioner because my hair is pretty thick, that said, I know women IRL who have used Cécred religiously for months, and their hair is growing and flourishing - so we're on board with the entire routine and will report back by winter on my results!
The line-up.
Yasmine Jameelah/xoNecole
After rinsing out the conditioner, I took the wash day a little further, applied the Moisturizing Deep Conditioner, and headed to the sauna. Sauna time allows me to let my body sweat and release toxins, and I get to have the ultimate deep conditioning experience, it's a 2-for-1.
I stay in until the conditioning cap feels hot, and then I go rinse it out, I applied Cécred Moisture Sealing Lotion to lock in all that moisture from the treatment, and their new Restoring Hair & Edge Drops because my edges need some TLC after years of braids and tight ponytails.
Giving my curls the ultimate deep-conditioning experience.
Yasmine Jameelah/xoNecole
5 p.m. I come back upstairs, walk my dog, and do some reading before I have dinner. Since it's Sunday, I head to my aunt's house for dinner. She started getting the family together after church to eat on Sundays, and we don't do it every week, but when she hits the group chat, we show up. She has dogs as well, so I bring my dog with me, and he eats dinner with his cousins.
We eat dinner, dance to music, and catch up on what's going on in each other's lives. We danced to the classics and started off honoring the loss of Frankie Beverly, then played some Michael Jackson, and ended with Sade (who my aunt was named after) and Luther Vandross.
9 p.m. I'm finally home from a beautiful Cécred Self-Care Sunday. My hair is clean, I'm fed (spiritually and physically), and I'm ending the day in bed with a book.
10/10 recommend a #CécredSunday wash day routine with a few of your own recommendations, of course. I can't wait for next week to come, and this time, I might add some more Bey-approved rituals (painting and maybe even a sound bowl.)
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Dubbed one of the "21 Black Women Wellness Influencers You Should Follow" by Black + Well, Yasmine Jameelah continues to leave her digital footprint across platforms ranging from Forever 21 Plus, Vaseline, and R29 Unbothered discussing all things healing and body positivity. As a journalist, her writing can be found on sites such as Blavity, Blacklove.com, and xoNecole. Jameelah is also known for her work shattering unconventional stigmas surrounding wellness through her various mediums, including her company Transparent Black Girl. Find Yasmine @YasmineJameelah across all platforms.
For Us, By Us: How HBCU Alumni Are Building Legacies Through Entrepreneurship
Homecoming season is here, and alumni are returning to the yard to celebrate with their friends and family at the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that have changed their lives forever.
No matter where their life journeys have taken them, for HBCU students from near and far, returning to where it all started can invoke feelings of nostalgia, appreciation for the past, and inspiration for the future.
The seeds for these entrepreneurs were planted during their time as students at schools like Spelman, North Carolina A&T, and more, which is why xoNecole caught up with Look Good Live Well’s Ariane Turner, HBCU Buzz’s Luke Lawal and Morehouse Senior Director of Marketing and Comms and Press Secretary Jasmine Gurley to highlight the role their HBCU roots play in their work as entrepreneurs, the legacy they aim to leave behind through the work that they do, and more as a part of Hyundai’s Best In Class initiative.
On Honoring HBCU Roots To Create Something That Is For Us, By Us
Ariane Turner
Courtesy
When Ariane Turner launched Look Good, Live Well, she created it with Black and brown people in mind, especially those with sensitive skin more prone to dryness and skin conditions like acne and eczema.
The Florida A&M University graduate launched her business to create something that addressed topical skin care needs and was intentional about its approach without negative terminology.
Turner shared that it is important to steer clear of language often adopted by more prominent brands, such as “banishing breakouts” or “correcting the skin,” because, in reality, Turner says there is nothing wrong with the way that our skin and bodies react to various life changes.
“I think what I have taken with me regarding my HBCU experience and translated to my entrepreneurial experience is the importance of not just networking,” Turner, the founder and CEO of Look Good, Live Well, tellls xoNecole.
“We hear that in business all the time, your network is your net worth, but family, there’s a thing at FAMU that we call FAMU-lee instead of family, and it’s very much a thing. What that taught me is the importance of not just making relationships and not just making that connection, but truly working on deepening them, and so being intentional about connecting with people initially, but staying connected and building and deepening those relationships, and that has served me tremendously in business, whether it’s being able to reach back to other classmates who I went to school with, or just networking in general.”
She adds, “I don’t come from a business background. As soon as I finished school, I continued with my entrepreneurial journey, and so there’s a lot of that traditional business act and the networking, those soft skills that I just don’t have, but I will say that just understanding how to leverage and network community and to build intentional relationships is something that has taken me far and I definitely got those roots while attending FAMU.”
On Solving A Very Specific Need For The Community
Luke Lawal Jr.
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When Luke Lawal Jr. launched HBCU Buzz, his main focus was to represent his community, using the platform to lift as they climbed by creating an outlet dedicated to celebrating the achievements and positive news affecting the 107 historically HBCUs nationwide.
By spotlighting the wonderful things that come from the HBCU community and coupling it with what he learned during his time at Bowie State University, Lawal used that knowledge to propel himself as an entrepreneur while also providing his people with accurate representation across the internet.
“The specific problem in 2011 when I started HBCU Buzz was more so around the fact that mainstream media always depict HBCUs as negative,” Lawal says. “You would only see HBCUs in the mainstream media when someone died, or the university president or someone was stepping down. It was always bad news, but they never shed light on all the wonderful things from our community."
So, I started HBCU Buzz to ensure the world saw the good things that come from our space. And they knew that HBCUs grew some of the brightest people in the world, and just trying to figure out ways to make sure our platform was a pedestal for all the students that come through our institutions.”
“The biggest goal is to continue to solve problems, continue to create brands that solve the problems of our communities, and make sure that our products, our brands, our companies, and institutions are of value and they’re helping our community,” he continues. “That they’re solving problems that propel our space forward.”
On How Being An HBCU Alum Impacts The Way One Shows Up In The World
Jasmine Gurley
Courtesy
Jasmine Gurley is a proud North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University alum. She is even more delighted with her current role, which enables her to give back to current HBCU students as the Senior Director of Brand Marketing and Communications and official press secretary at Morehouse College.
“It was a formative experience where I really was able to come into my own and say yes to all the opportunities that were presented to me, and because of that, it’s been able to open the doors later in life too,” says Gurley of her experience at North Carolina A&T. “One thing I love about many HBCUs is that we are required to learn way more about African American history than you do in your typical K through 12 or even at the higher ed level."
She adds, “It allowed us to have a better understanding of where we came from, and so for me, because I’m a storyteller, I’m a history person, I’m very sensitive to life in general, being able to listen to the stories and the trials that our ancestors overcame, put the battery pack in my back to say, ‘Oh nothing can stop me. Absolutely nothing can stop me. I know where I came from, so I can overcome something and try anything. And I have an obligation to be my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Simultaneously, I also have a responsibility to help others realize that greatness.
Gurley does not take her position at an HBCU, now as a leader, lightly.
“People think I’m joking when I say I’m living the dream, but I really am,” she notes. “So I wake up every day and know that the work that I do matters, no matter how hard it might be, how frustrating it may be, and challenging it. I know the ripple effect of my work, my team, and what this institution does also matter. The trajectory of Black male experiences, community, history, and then just American advancement just in general.”
On the other hand, through her business, Sankofa Public Relations, Gurley is also on a mission to uplift brands in their quest to help their respective communities. Since its inception in 2017, Sankofa PR has been on a mission to “reach back and reclaim local, national, and global communities by helping those actively working to move” various areas of the world, focusing on pushing things forward for the better.
“Through Sankofa, we’ve worked with all different types of organizational brands and individuals in several different industries, but I would think of them as mission-based,” says Gurley.
“So with that, it’s an opportunity to help people who are trying to do good in the world, and they are passionate about what they’re doing. They just need help with marketing issues, storytelling, and branding, and that’s when my expertise can come into play. Help them get to that moment where they can tell their story through me or another platform, and that’s been super fulfilling.”
Join us in celebrating HBCU excellence! Check out our Best In Class hub for inspiring stories, empowering resources, and everything you need to embrace the HBCU experience.
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Nelly And Ashanti Open Up About Their Newborn: 'He's Such An Incredibly Happy Baby'
Nelly and Ashanti are the example of when spinning the block goes right. The couple reconnected in 2023 after being separated for a decade, and now they are married and just welcomed a baby boy, Kareem Kenkaide Haynes, aka KK, named after the singer's father. The diamond-selling rapper recently celebrated his 50th birthday with two parties, one in Atlanta and one in Las Vegas.
Ashanti was all hands on deck, planning an all-gold-themed bash for her beau in Vegas, and during the party, the loving couple dished on their new life together. While speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Nelly gushed over his "gorgeous wife" and called seeing the "Baby" singer during Verzuz in 2021 (where their interaction went viral) the "proudest moment" in his life.
When asked how that made her feel, Ashanti said, "It's priceless, honestly, just to have my soulmate, like my person, like my best friend, like my protector. It's an amazing feeling."
She added, "I think the universe just doesn't make mistakes, so I'm super blessed to have him."
Nelly, who already had four kids before welcoming KK in July, praised new mom Ashanti and joked about her relationship with their son. "She's an awesome mom. To watch someone care about someone else so much and give their all and is willing to give their all. Like she said, sometimes it can be too far, but you way prefer to have a parent that goes too far then a parent that doesn't go far enough," he said.
He went on to explain that their mother/ son relationship is "laughable love in a good way." "She treats him like a build-a-bear. The boy is three months, he changes outfits in the house," he said. "He doesn't leave the house."
All in all, the newlyweds seem to be very happy with each other and are enjoying life with their newborn. He's such an incredibly happy baby," Ashanti said.
She continued, "He recently just found his toes, his feet, so now he grabs his feet whenever he can when he's laying down, and he smiles all the time."
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