She's beauty, she's grace, yes, she's the blueprint, and she's the moment. She's a Style Innovator, turning everyday moments into the kind of fashion statements we can't stop double-tapping. And she's not alone.
This year's It Girl 100 is a mosaic of brilliance, featuring entrepreneurs, cultural disruptors, beauty visionaries, and boundary-pushing creatives who embody the spirit of "Yes, And." This digital celebration honors the women who embrace every facet of themselves, proving authenticity will always be in style.
Among these 100 It Girls stand the Style Innovators, the muses and the artists setting the tone in beauty, hair, and fashion. They're the creatives who turn self-expression into a walking art form. With every detail devoured, from OOTDs to OOTNs, they remind us that personal style isn't just about what you wear, but how you move through the world and how you show up as no one but yourself.
Here's the roll call for xoNecole's It Girl Class of 2025: Style Innovators.
Model, Content Creator, and TV Host Achieng Agutu
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Achieng Agutu
Her Handle: @noordinarynoire
Her Title: Model, Content Creator, TV Host
Who's That It Girl: Achieng Agutu is the Kenyan-born Confidence Queen taking over digital culture. We love her for using her platform to uplift others with fearless self-expression and for proving that beauty lies in authenticity.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, and I am apologetically me!"
Beauty Editor and Expert Maya Allen
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Maya Allen
Her Handle: @mayaalenaa
Her Title: Beauty Editor and Expert
Who's That It Girl: Maya Allen is a beauty editor and writer whose work at Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and The Cut has changed how we talk about beauty. She’s passionate about representation and using storytelling to challenge old standards.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I'm a storyteller, and I know the most powerful chapters of my story are still being written."
Beauty Influencer and Content Creator Alissa Armon
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Alissa Armon
Her Handle: @alissa.ashley
Her Title: Beauty Influencer and Content Creator
Who's That It Girl: Alissa Ashley is a beauty and lifestyle content creator with over 2 million YouTube subscribers. Known for her makeup tutorials and relatable style, she's expanded her content to include fitness and wellness.
Creator and Social Media Personality Jodie Taylor
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Jodie Taylor
Her Handle: @jodiektayl
Her Title: Creator and Social Media Personality
Who's That Girl: Jodie Taylor blends creativity and confidence in everything she wears. We celebrate her for her fearless individuality and for leading a generation of women who style their own stories.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I operate at the highest levels and I bring others along with me."
Creator and Beauty Consultant Golloria George
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Golloria George
Her Handle: @golloria
Her Title: Creator and Beauty Consultant
Who's That It Girl: Golloria George is a beauty creator and consultant known for pushing shade inclusivity in the industry. She’s collaborated with brands like Patrick Ta and Rhode and earned recognition from Forbes, TIME, and Ebony for her impact.
Her "Yes, And," Statement: "Yes, I stand firmly in who I am and am confident in my power."
Founder and Designer Sade Mims
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Sade Mims
Her Handle: @sademims
Her Title: Founder and Designer
Who's That It Girl: Sade Mims is an artist and founder of design label EDAS. Mims skills, experience, and innate interest for conceptualization and design have been the driving force of her work. With over 10 years of experience, she has immersed herself in many mediums and finds joy and inspiration from the mundane parts of life.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I’m chill and still full of depth."
Fashion, Style Influencer and Content Creator Courtney Quinn
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Courtney Quinn
Her Handle: @colormecourtney
Her Title: Fashion, Style Influencer and Content Creator
Who's That It Girl: We love Courtney Quinn’s unapologetic embrace of color and play. Her creative storytelling and business savvy prove that joy can be a strategy and that whimsy and purpose belong together.
Beauty and Lifestyle Creator Toni Bravo
Credit: Adelynn Tourondel
Toni Bravo
Her Handle: @bonitravo
Her Title: Beauty and Lifestyle Creator
Who's That It Girl: Toni Bravo is a visionary stylist and creative director redefining chic. We honor her for transforming fashion into a language of empowerment and self-celebration.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I am limitless and I’m paving my own path."
Beauty Content Creator Amber Nicole
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Amber Nicole
Her Handle: @withambernicole
Her Title: Beauty Content Creator
Who's That It Girl: Amber Nicole is a beauty entrepreneur and wellness advocate who founded her clean-skincare line, Naked By Nature to honor her journey with vitiligo, champion self-care, and redefine beauty standards for women of color.
Beauty Influencer and Content Creator Arnell Armon
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Arnell Armon
Her Handle: @arnell.armon
Her Title: Beauty Influencer and Content Creator
Who's That It Girl: We honor Arnell Armon’s sharp editorial eye and influence across beauty and lifestyle. Her thoughtful content and authenticity continue to inspire a community that values creativity and confidence.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I’m a mom, creator, and trailblazer."
Creator Salina Williams
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Salina Williams
Her Handle: @salina_sincerely
Her Title: Creator
Who's That It Girl: Salina Williams brings soulful elegance to every ensemble. We celebrate her for merging classic beauty with contemporary edge, creating a signature style that speaks volumes without saying a word.
Creator and Social Media Personality Jodie Woods
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Jodie Woods
Her Handle: @jodiewoods
Her Title: Creator and Social Media Personality
Who's That It Girl: With charm and poise beyond her years, Jodie Woods is shaping the future of fashion influence. We love her for showing that authenticity, not trends, is the ultimate luxury.
Model, Entrepreneur, Beauty and Media Personality Jordyn Woods
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Jordyn Woods
Her Handle: @jordynwoods
Her Title: Model, Entrepreneur, Beauty and Media Personality
Who's That It Girl: Jordyn Woods continues to turn reinvention into an art form. We honor her for her self-made journey and for using her platform to champion body positivity, growth, and grace.
Kirah Ominique
Her Handle: @kirahominique
Who's That It Girl: Kirah Ominique is the creative voice behind confidence-filled style moments. We celebrate her for inspiring women to embrace every curve, color, and chapter of their beauty.
Beauty and Lifestyle Creator Yana Carr
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Yana Carr
Her Handle: @goldynaps
Her Title: Beauty and Lifestyle Creator
Who's That It Girl: Yana is a Philadelphia content creator who started with natural hair and beauty, then expanded into tennis and lifestyle. She now hosts tennis events for young Black women and is launching her own braiding hair brand.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I'm multifaceted and unapologetic about pursuing my passions."
Influencer Tiara Willis
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Tiara Willis
Her Handle: @thetiarawillis
Who's That It Girl: Tiara Willis started creating beauty content at just 14 and built a trusted community of over half a million followers. Now, she is an amazing licensed esthetician, and partners with major brands to educate and empower skincare lovers everywhere.
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I built a trusted community and I shape the way they experience beauty."
Makeup Artist and Beauty Creator Makeup Shayla
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Makeup Shayla
Her Handle: @makeupshayla
Her Title: Makeup Artist and Beauty Creator
Who's That It Girl: Makeup Shayla’s artistry has become iconic in the beauty world. We love her for setting the standard for glam that’s equal parts bold, empowering, and timeless.
Zaya Wade
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Zaya Wade
Her Title: Model
Who's That It Girl: Zaya Wade is courage personified. We celebrate her for standing proudly in her truth and inspiring a global movement toward acceptance, identity, and radiant self-love.
Entrepreneur Ruthann Palacios
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Ruthann Palacios
Her Handle: @ruesworldd
Her Title: Entrepreneur
Who's That It Girl: "My overall purpose is to show that it is possible to show your personality through your clothes no matter the size, race, or gender and that you can do anything you set your mind to. At the end of the day we are our biggest critics and if you feel free, confident, and good in what you do, the weight of being judged by others won’t hold any value."
Her "Yes, And" Statement: "Yes, I am a creator who celebrates fashion, and I am a voice reminding people they don’t have to fit in to stand out."
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A Black girl ushering in her era of straight hair was an unspoken but understood tradition, a legacy shaped by women who learned that relaxers were the key to manageability and beauty, as society had defined it.
Though relaxers were a product of their time, the memories many of us share from that era of creamy-white, no-lye formulas also carry a collective trauma. It was one endured in the name of beauty standards we didn’t question until we did. It’s an experience that Courtney Adeleye, founder and CEO of Watch & Sea Beauty, knows all too well. And one that ultimately shaped her path into the hair care space.
In xoNecole’s Generation to Generation, created in partnership with Target, Courtney reflects on her hair journey alongside her daughter during a BTS video from their mother-daughter photoshoot. As she is seen applying product to her daughter’s braids, she begins talking about her experience with perms before going natural. Her daughter pauses and asks a simple yet revealing question: “What’s a relaxer?”
Credit: Darnell Brown
Courtney explains that it’s a chemical process that makes Black hair “pretty much permanently straight.” She then recalls getting her first relaxer at 13, a moment that remains vivid in her memory decades later. “My head was on fire,” she says in the video. “It’s nothing I remember in a good way. It’s something I’m like, ‘This can’t be.’” Their exchange is as striking as it is revelatory.
Unlike generations before her, Courtney’s daughter will never have to know relaxers as the rite of passage that once felt inevitable for so many Black girls. Thanks to entrepreneurs like Courtney, natural hair is no longer treated as the exception but upheld as the standard. As something to be celebrated, nurtured, and protected.
Generation to generation, her work helps ensure that Black girls can grow up with hair journeys rooted in appreciation, care, and choice, instead of one etched in pain, trauma, or assimilation.
In that way, Courtney isn’t just changing how we care for our hair; she’s paying it forward, crafting a legacy her daughters and future generations of Black women after them get to inherit.
That legacy didn’t begin with hair. Courtney credits her own mother, a nurse like she once was, for being the blueprint for what entrepreneurship could look like. “I got a chance to see my mother take a sheet of paper, cut it up in little rectangles, take that to a printing shop, and turn it into a card game,” she tells her daughter in a different scene. Those early lessons planted the seeds for what would later become The Mane Choice, a hair care brand born from her desire to create safer, healthier alternatives for Black hair that didn't compromise on performance.
After starting The Mane Choice in 2013 with just $500, Courtney worked tirelessly to build a hair empire that would go on to surpass $100 million in sales in only six years. She later sold the brand in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, cementing her place among the Black women entrepreneurs who have turned purpose and vision into industry-defining impact.
“Everything that we do is a stepping stone,” Courtney says in the video. “So how do I take what I’ve done as a nurse and turn it into what I’m doing?”
Credit: Darnell Brown
Today, that full circle is the gift that gives, and Black history is still being written, not just by women like Courtney, but by the little Black girls watching, learning, and asking questions that open new doors. Watch & Sea Beauty marks a return for the entrepreneur that reflects purpose, growth, resilience, and trust built over time.
From generation to generation, the way we love and care for our hair tells a bigger story: one of healing, innovation, and what we now have the freedom to choose for ourselves. Courtney’s contributions to Black hair and beauty are truly unmatched, not simply because of what she’s built, but because of what she’s shifted our hair stories: the narrative, the standard, and the future.
Her work is the legacy that lives in what we make possible for the women who come next.
Featured image by Darnell Brown
By the time December arrived, especially as a Jersey girl going to see the tree at Rockefeller Center in the city, enjoying the holiday bars, time with my family, all the holiday rituals that once brought me joy, decorating my tree, and planning holiday outings, felt distant.
I wasn’t burned out from doing too much. I was exhausted from holding everything. I realized I didn’t need to host or attend a holiday party. I needed to halt. I needed a pause.
So I packed my bags and took a solo trip to Aruba.
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Ironically, Embassy Suites was my happy place growing up.
My birthdays were marked by pool parties and sleepovers, and swimming became my earliest form of regulation. Years later, that instinct returned. When life feels unsteady, I go back to the water. Whether it’s swimming indoors at the gym, at local pools, or in the ocean, water calms me. There felt like no better way to let my body finally exhale than spending four days alone, surrounded by the sea.
I love a baecation, a girls’ trip, and a family vacation just as much as the next person — cousins’ trips are still my favorite, sorry to the rest of my family — but this time, I needed rest and silence. Total quiet outside of my Spotify playlist and the sound of waves. A break from my titles — from being the reliable one, the founder, the social media manager, the journalist, the one who’s always available, the oldest daughter.
As Black women, we’re often taught to hold everything together long before anyone asks us to. I didn’t grow up seeing the women who raised me vacation much. They did occasionally travel, but I saw them work more than anything. They held all the titles they taught me to hold (and then some), and they still do. Before the plane even took off, both of my phones were ringing nonstop.
The need for rest wasn’t theoretical, dramatic, or a TikTok cliché of how a vacation would heal me - it was urgent.
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Where I Stayed
Staying at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Aruba Resort, which opened in 2023, made slowing down feel possible. While Embassy Suites is often associated with business or family travel, the Aruba property is one of eight Embassy Suites resorts worldwide — designed as a true resort experience rather than a traditional hotel stay.
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One of the most grounding features of the property is its direct underground walkway to the beach, allowing guests to move from the hotel to the shoreline safely and seamlessly. Upon arrival, I was met with private palapas reserved for hotel guests, calm, clear waters, and a family-friendly experience where infants, adults, and even pets were welcome (yes, I felt guilty for leaving my dog, but again - I needed the rest lol.)
While it isn’t marketed as a wellness hotel, there were thoughtful nods to well-being throughout the stay.
Daily movement offerings like yoga, Pilates, and water aerobics were available throughout the week, adding to the resort’s offerings as well as a kids club, a gym, and many rooms to hold meetings and celebrations.
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Each morning began slowly with a complimentary breakfast at Brickstone Kitchen, featuring local tropical fruits and a made-to-order omelette bar. Brickstone Café offered an easy stop for coffee throughout the day, reinforcing the unhurried pace of the resort, and daily, I sat outside overlooking the ocean, taking in the view and the waves.
Snorkeling and Enjoying Cultural Cuisine
Beyond the hotel, I explored Aruba through moments that felt equally restorative. I snorkeled with Red Sail Aruba, swimming in some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed beef croquette, pastechi, and the country’s official cocktail, the Aruba Ariba — a drink invented by a Hilton bartender more than sixty years ago. Those moments made me feel present, not like a visitor rushing through.
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Dining & the Nervous System Moment
Dinner at Brickstones Restaurant, led by Barbadian-born Executive Sous Chef Andre Nurse, became one of the most defining moments of the trip. I expected to enjoy rotating fish-of-the-day selections — from mahi-mahi to sea bass, alongside fresh ceviche and surf-and-turf plates featuring sirloin with coconut curry shrimp. And I did. But during my first dinner, overlooking the property and the beach as the sun began to set, something unexpected happened.
As I waited for my meal, I could feel the stress leaving my body. A full-body tingle moved through me. My shoulders softened. My breath slowed. My body shifted out of fight-or-flight and finally stood down. I experienced a parasympathetic release.
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According to Harvard Health, the parasympathetic nervous systemacts like a brake after stress, calming the body once danger has passed. I didn’t realize how long my body had been bracing until it stopped. I closed my eyes, let the chills move through me, and surrendered to the calm I had been needing. For the first time in weeks, my nervous system stopped bracing. It was like my body was telling me to slow down and finally listen.
Seeing the Island, Fully
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On my final evening, I experienced Aruba beyond the resort when the hotel’s marketing director offered to drive me around the island — a gesture that became one of the highlights of my trip. We revisited Eagle Beach, continued north to the California Lighthouse — a historic beacon built in the early 20th century and perched at the island’s northern tip — and took in panoramic views that made Aruba’s stillness feel even more profound.
We ended the night with a stop at Starbucks Aruba and a conversation about the island’s long-standing connection to aloe. Long before it became a global skincare staple, aloe was one of Aruba’s primary exports, thriving in the island’s dry climate and shaping a local industry that still exists today. Learning that history — how the land itself has long been used for healing — added another layer to the experience.
Aruba brought me face-to-face with what I’d been avoiding: radical self-care and sustainable practices that root me even when life feels unsteady. I returned home lighter — not because my circumstances had changed, but because my body remembered what safety feels like.
I came back to my family, the remainder of the holiday season, and my work with a clearer sense of what I need to protect moving forward, and dedicated to the next adventure
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