Tag: black women

Adwoa Beauty Founder Details How the Brand Came to Be

Image Source: Courtesy of Julian Addo

Too often, the best beauty stories go Untold, solely based on a person’s skin color, religion, gender expression, disability, or socioeconomic status. Here, we’re passing the mic to some of the most ambitious and talented voices in the industry, so they can share, in their own words, the remarkable story of how they came to be — and how they’re using beauty to change the world for the better. Up next: Julian Addo, founder of Adwoa Beauty.

Beauty has always been my entire life. I grew up in Staten Island, NY, and I came to this country when I was 2 years old as I was actually born in West Africa, Liberia. Beauty was all around me growing up in the inner cities of New York. Having grown up during the ’90s, that was the era for fashion and for hair. This was perfect because my first experience in this space was actually from me wanting to make money. I didn’t have a green card at the time to get a traditional job in fast food like my friends were doing after school. So circumstantially, through a friend I started doing hair. She was a . . . we call it “kitchen beautician,” so she did hair out of her house. I would go over, and first I’d just watch. But after a while, when she got very busy, I would help her.

After a while, I just picked up on certain hairstyles that were popular back then. Then I realized I was good at what I was doing — at replicating what I saw. So I started to do hair to make money, too. I ended up enrolling in a vocational school called Ralph McKee Vocational Technical High School to study

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Black Woman With Breast Cancer on Link Between Beauty Products, Cancer

  • Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer but are often omitted in trials studying it.
  • A team of community-based researchers — plus a survivor and more — work to prevent these deaths.
  • The research initiative is studying toxic chemicals in beauty products marketed to Black women.

Tiah Tomlin-Harris got breast cancer at 38, without any family history of the disease.

Tomlin-Harris, who has a master’s in chemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry, suspected her lifestyle might have contributed to the cancer’s development.

Just after receiving her diagnosis, she asked a social worker at the hospital if there was anything she should be doing to prevent her cancer from worsening or coming back after remission. She mentioned that she’d read about chemicals in beauty products being linked to cancer risk. 

The social worker refused to engage, Tomlin-Harris said. She told Tomlin-Harris to keep using the products she wanted to because there was nothing she could do — that lifestyle changes don’t work.

Research on chemicals in personal-care products and breast cancer is still lacking, the American Cancer Society said. But recent studies have identified two groups of chemicals in beauty products that might be linked to cancer: parabens — which are preservatives found in beauty, hair, shaving, and makeup products — and phthalates, used in nail polish and hairspray.

Tiah Tomlin-Harris is a cancer survivor spreading awareness about cancer-causing chemicals in beauty products

Tiah Tomlin-Harris, a breast-cancer survivor.

Bench to Community


In 2019, Tomlin-Harris joined Bench to Community, a research initiative in California, to ensure other Black women get better information on toxins in beauty products than she did. The team is conducting research into how chemicals in beauty products may uniquely affect Black women, and it shares new insights as soon as they become available.

“There are beauty supply stores everywhere in our community,

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Breast Cancer Survivor Sheds Light On Toxic Chemicals in Beauty Products

beauty products

When Tiah Tomlin-Harris got diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 38, she had no family history of the disease. However, she believed one key component may have led to her diagnosis: her lifestyle.

Convinced that this was the case, Tomlin-Haris asked a social worker at the hospital if there was anything she should be doing to prevent her cancer from worsening or coming back after remission. Tomlin-Harris, who has a master’s in chemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry, read about chemicals in beauty products being linked to cancer risk. However, the social worker wasn’t so convinced that the beauty products were the culprit. In fact, the social worker told Tomlin-Harris to continue using them because there was nothing she could do. Lifestyle changes don’t work.

Despite this, Tomlin-Harris still felt strongly about the harmful chemicals and toxins often found in common beauty products so she set out on a mission to educate Black women and ensure that they had better information than she did.

“Since the diagnosis, I’ve been busy helping other men and women fight, Tomlin-Harris said, according to a blog post. “I started a Facebook group called My Breast Years Ahead – Atlanta, helping women who have been affected by any type of cancer in the Atlanta area, connect and share their journey.”

In 2019, she joined Bench to Community, a research initiative in California dedicated to informing Black women about the harmful chemicals found in beauty products. The team is currently conducting research into how chemicals in beauty products may uniquely affect Black women.

Tomlin-Harris also co-founded My Style Matters, a 501c grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and supporting underserved families impacted by cancer.

“There are beauty supply stores everywhere in our community, on every corner,” Tomlin-Harris told Insider. “Beauty

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Protest calls for boycott of Ego Beauty Supply

While addressing the crowd of protestors outside Ego Beauty Supply on Waughtown Street last Saturday, Effrainguan Muhammad, a student minister with the local Nation of Islam, didn’t mix words when delivering his message to the owners of the establishment.  

“Our message is short and simple. Keep your God damned hands off our Black women,” Muhammad said. The protest, which was organized by Hate Out of Winston, was held in response to videos posted on social media that show the store’s owner and a female employee getting into a physical altercation with a Black customer. 

Here’s what we know about the incident: On July 16, at around 10:30 a.m., Terrica Hughes, a professional stylist who has a salon in Clemmons, approached the counter to make a purchase, but when she tried to pay, the transaction couldn’t be completed according to the employee working the register. 

Hughes waited for the error to be corrected and says she used her banking app to show the owner, Hasan Kanan, that the transaction for $31.17 had cleared. But that wasn’t enough for Kanan. Instead, Hughes said she was accused of stealing and Kanan even tried to make her pay again.

Hughes said after waiting about 30 minutes, she tried to grab the items and walk out the store. The video clip posted on social media begins a few seconds before Hughes tried to leave the store. The clip shows Kanan grabbing Hughes and pushing her back to the counter. A female employee also grabs Hughes in the video and takes her bag. 

After Hughes’ video reached more than 100 shares on social media and the “#weareterrica” hashtag started to spread, Ego Beauty Supply released a statement on Facebook. In the statement which included somewhat of a backhanded apology and has since been deleted, they said

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This Breast Cancer Survivor Is Spreading Awareness On Toxic Chemicals In Beauty Products

Tiah Tomlin-Harris, a cancer coach and breast health educator, confronted her breast cancer diagnosis head-on and is now shining a light on the harmful effects of toxic chemicals in beauty products.

Insider reports Tomlin-Harris was diagnosed at 38 years old without any family history of the disease. Immediately, she realized that her lifestyle might have contributed to her cancer’s development.

Shortly after receiving the news, she asked a social worker at the hospital about preventative measures in case the breast cancer worsened or returned after remission. She also noted some readings about chemicals in beauty products being linked to cancer, but the social worker refused to engage with her findings.

Instead, the social worker advised Tomlin-Harris to continue using the beauty products because lifestyle changes wouldn’t make a difference. However, Harris, who has a master’s in chemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry, decided to find out for herself.

“There are beauty supply stores everywhere in our community, on every corner,” Tomlin-Harris, a Project Lead graduate with the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC), told Insider. “Beauty supply stores have harmful chemicals in them. So how do we get this messaging out into the community?”

The lack of information and research about the chemicals in beauty products is alarming. Existing research studies strongly suggest that the following two groups of chemicals might be linked to cancer at certain exposure levels.

Parabens, which are used as preservatives in many cosmetic products, including makeup, moisturizers, haircare products, and shaving creams/gels, can act like a very weak estrogen in the body when penetrating the skin. As a result, researchers at City of Hope, a private medical center, found parabens to cause the increase in growth of breast cancer cells in Black women compared to white women.

Next, phthalates are most commonly used to hold

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