Get The Look: High-Shine Curls Is Your New Summer ‘Do
Sis, it's time to wrap up that blowout and bring out the summer curls. It's heating up outside, and our hair should reflect this easy season. As the sun shines brighter and the days get longer, our hair wants to be just as free. From juicy twist-outs to beachy waves, curls thrive in the heat, and for Black women, rocking our natural textures or defined curls in the summer isn't just a look, it's a whole mood. It's giving carefree, radiant, and confident.
At this year's BET Awards, singer Ashanti stepped onto the red carpet showing us exactly how it's done. Her voluminous summer curls cascaded effortlessly, serving glamour and softness all at once. The look was bold, bouncy, and beautifully Black — a reminder that curls can be both red carpet-ready and easy-breezy enough for Sunday brunch. Source: Courtesy of Bounce Curl / Courtesy of Bounce Curl
Whether you're headed to a rooftop day party or just want to feel the wind move through your twist-out at the farmers market, curls are a go-to summer style for a reason. They bring texture, movement, and personality to any outfit, and when maintained with the right products, they're as low maintenance as they are stunning. Inspired by Ashanti's look? Keep reading for tips from celebrity hairstylist Dhairius Thomas on how to recreate her iconic BET Awards curls at home.
Dhairius started off Ashanti's look by washing her curls with Bounce Curls ' Gentle Clarifying Shampoo to remove any impurities or chemicals from the hair, followed by the Ayurvedic Deep Conditioner to lock in that moisture.
While her hair was still wet, he went in by section to detangle and define her curls with the Define Edgelift Brush, then applied the Avocado & Rose Oil Clump & Define Cream throughout the entire head.
He then diffused the curls until they were about 90% dry, sprayed the Alcohol-Free Hairspray, then finished the drying process. To complete the look, Dhairius added a finishing shine with the Light Oil. '
SEE ALSO
Get The Look: High-Shine Curls Is Your New Summer 'Do was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
Black America Web Featured Video
CLOSE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Gustavo Dudamel is briefly, joyously back at the Bowl with the L.A. Phil
Tuesday night, Gustavo Dudamel was back at the Hollywood Bowl. This summer is the 20th anniversary of his U.S. debut — at 24 years old — conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and becoming irrepressibly besotted with the amphitheater. He walked on stage, now the proud paterfamilias with greying hair and a broad welcoming smile on his face as he surveyed the nearly full house. The weather was fine. The orchestra, as so very few orchestras ever do, looked happy. For Dudamel, his single homecoming week this Bowl season began Monday evening conducting his beloved Youth Orchestra Los Angeles as part of the annual YOLA National Festival, which brings kids from around the country to the Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood. But it is also a bittersweet week. Travel issues (no one will say exactly what, but we can easily guess) have meant the cancellation of his Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela's trip to the Bowl next week. Dudamel will also be forced to remain behind with them in Caracas. After 20 years, Dudamel clearly knows what works at the Bowl, but he also likes to push the envelope as with Tuesday's savvy blend of Duke Ellington and jazzy Ravel. The soloist was Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, whose recent recording of Ravel's complete solo piano works along with his two concertos, has been one of the most popular releases celebrating the Ravel year (March 7 was the 150th anniversary of the French composer's birth). Ellington and Ravel were certainly aware of each other. When Ravel visited New York in 1928, he heard the 29-year-old Ellington's band at the Cotton Club, although his attention on the trip was more drawn to Gershwin. Ellington knew and admired Ravel, and Billy Strayhorn, who was responsible for much of Ellington's music, was strongly drawn to Ravel's harmony and use of instrumental color. On his return to Paris, Ravel wrote his two piano concertos, the first for the left hand alone, and jazz influences were strong. Cho played both concertos, which were framed by the symphonic tone poems 'Harlem' and 'Black, Brown and Beige, which Ellington called tone parallels. There has been no shortage of Ravel concerto performance of late — or ever — but Ellington is another matter. Although the pianist, composer and band leader was very much on the radar of the classical world — 'Harlem' was originally intended for Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony; Leopold Stokowski attended the Carnegie Hall premiere of 'Black, Brown and Beige,' as did Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson and Frank Sinatra — Ellington never played the crossover game. The NBC 'Harlem' never panned out and became a big-band score. Ever practical, Ellington, who composed mostly in wee hours after gigs, always wrote for the occasion and the players. He tended to leave orchestration to others, more concerned with highlighting the fabulous improvising soloists in his band. The scores, moreover, were gatherings, developments and riffs on various existing songs. 'Harlem' is an acoustical enrapturement of the legendary Harlem Renaissance and one of the great symphonic portraits of a place in the repertory. 'Black, Brown and Beige' is an ambitious acoustical unfolding of the American Black narrative, from African work songs to spiritual exaltation with 'Come Sunday' (sung by Mahalia Jackson at the premiere) to aspects of Black life, in war and peace, up to the Harlem Renaissance. Both works are best known today, if nonetheless seldom heard, in the conventional but effective orchestrations by Maurice Peress and are what Dudamel relies on. The version of 'Black, Brown and Beige' reduces it from 45 to 18 too-short minutes. The primary reason for these scores' neglect is that orchestras can't swing. The exception is the L.A. Phil. With Dudamel's surprising success of taking the L.A. Phil to Coachella, there now seems nothing it can't do. The time has come to commission more experimental and more timely arrangements. But even these Peress arrangements, blasted through the Bowl's sound system and with the orchestra bolstered by a jazz saxophone section, jazz drummer and other jazz-inclined players, caught the essence of one of America's greatest composers. Ravel fared less well. The left-hand concerto has dark mysteries hard to transmit over so many acres and video close-ups of two-armed pianists trying to keep the right hand out of the way can be disconcerting. This summer, in fact, unmusical jumpy video is at all times disconcerting. Ravel's jazzier, sunnier G-Major concerto is a winner everywhere. But for all Cho's acclaim in Ravel, he played with sturdy authority. Four years ago, joining Dudamel at an L.A. Phil gala in Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cho brought refined freshness to Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. In Ravel at the Bowl, amplification strongly accentuated his polished technique, gleaming tone and meticulous rhythms, leaving it up to Dudamel and a joyous, eager orchestra to exult in the Ravel that Ellington helped make swing.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Everything We Know About BET Awards Getting Canceled
The question on everyone's mind is whether the BET Awards have been canceled. The BET Awards, launched in 2001 by Black Entertainment Television, have long celebrated Black excellence in music, sports, film, and philanthropy. However, recent whispers suggest changes might be on the horizon. Fans now wonder whether these iconic shows, including the BET Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards, are here to stay or headed for a permanent hiatus. Here's all we know about the rumors surrounding the cancellation of the BET Awards. Are BET Awards getting canceled permanently? BET recently confirmed that the Soul Train Awards and the Hip Hop Awards have been suspended indefinitely. In a conversation with Billboard, BET CEO Scott Mills explained that the network is not eliminating these shows but rather 'reimagining' them for today's shifting media landscape. When asked directly about the rumors, Mills clarified: 'It's less about them being no longer and more about our team having to reimagine them for this changing media landscape that we find ourselves in. I think what we're going to see are more people taking franchises and saying, 'This might have started on linear television, but now I'm going to move it to another space. Do I move it to streaming? Or do I move it to another platform?' So for BET linear, we have suspended the Soul Train and Hip-Hop award shows. But we have a team that's actively thinking about where those award shows might best live as the media climate continues to evolve.' Mills emphasized that these iconic celebrations of culture are not disappearing completely. In fact, BET still hosts other major events like the NAACP Image Awards and Stellar Awards. The move comes amid a dramatic decline in live TV ratings. Nielsen reports show that award shows have lost more than 30% of viewers since 2015. The 2025 BET Awards, despite critical acclaim, experienced a 50% drop in ratings compared to the previous year. (via Newsbreak) Declining viewership isn't the only factor. The BET Hip Hop Awards struggled in 2024 to make an impact. The show scaled back significantly, hosting a smaller event at Drai's Nightclub in Las Vegas. Similarly, the Soul Train Awards quietly disappeared from the schedule last year without justification. The post Everything We Know About BET Awards Getting Canceled appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. Solve the daily Crossword
Newsweek
5 hours ago
- Newsweek
Sydney Sweeney's 'Great Jeans' Illuminate the Dangerous Resurgence of Eugenics
American Eagle came under fire recently for an ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. In one ad, Sweeney fiddles with her jeans, saying, "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes are blue." A male narrator finishes with, "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans." It's a play on homophones, but the wordplay reveals a more sinister element: Sweeney does not just have great American Eagle jeans, she has great American genes. Picking a blonde, blue-eyed, able-bodied all-American girl was not an accident. It was about showcasing what are "good genes," and thus what are "bad genes." It's a modern eugenics movement proudly re-emerging amid a welcoming political climate. A window display of actress Sydney Sweeney is seen on a window of an American Eagle store on Aug. 1, 2025, in New York City. A window display of actress Sydney Sweeney is seen on a window of an American Eagle store on Aug. 1, 2025, in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images The American eugenics movement has historically promoted the superiority of Anglo-Saxon, able-bodied, wealthy people, leading to harmful policies from the Immigration Act of 1924 barring immigrants from Asia to a practice of unnecessary and undisclosed hysterectomies performed on Black women in the South so widespread it was coined the "Mississippi appendectomy." Eugenicists promoted anti-miscegenation laws and forced sterilization of those in prison and in poverty and of those with disabilities or mental illness. These practices have not died. In 2020, low-income immigrant women detained by ICE in Georgia were forcibly sterilized. As we hear rhetoric from the current administration about immigrants "poisoning the blood" of our country, it invites horrifying thoughts of what may be happening to immigrants currently being detained by ICE. Even more sinister, however, is a modern eugenics movement camouflaged by in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF is increasingly popular, and rightfully so. Couples with fertility issues can conceive. Women can freeze eggs. Queer couples can have genetically related kids. IVF can also ostensibly prevent harm. IVF clinics might screen embryos for sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, BRCA1, and Down syndrome. Things get confusing and uncomfortable, however, when we try to define what harms are worth preventing. In a world where whiteness and conventional beauty are tightly coupled with success, couldn't selecting for these features be a way to minimize a child's future suffering? Most sperm donor companies have a height minimum of 5'9". Harvard graduate egg and sperm donors are highly sought after. While it's hard to fault parents for wanting the best for their children, as a geneticist, it is concerning to me how much stock people put into the inheritance of such complex and environmentally influenced traits. With biotech companies explicitly offering genetic testing, I am even more concerned. Last October, Helios Genomics offered to boost a couple's future child's IQ via genetic screening. Nucleus Genomics recently took this a shocking step further by announcing it is offering genetic testing for traits like eye color, hair color, height, BMI, and IQ. Companies perform these screens with polygenic risk scoring, which makes use of genetic mutations identified from large scale population studies to be associated with a complex trait like intelligence. But these findings are just that: associations. We barely understand the true, context-dependent function of all the genes and mutations associated with complex traits. The idea that a company could confidently boast a six-point increase in a trait as socially and environmentally modified as intelligence is naïve at best and deceptive at worst. It also plays directly into the ideals of eugenics: that all social disparities and ailments are genetically determined, and that there is one correct way to be. Amid devastating cuts to everything from Medicaid to education, it is curious that one of the few spaces the Trump administration has pledged to increase federal funding is in vitro fertilization. Is this a random act of kindness amid an onslaught of cruelties? Or is it one of several strategies for breeding a homogenous generation of nationalistic Americans—ones with "good genes" and predetermined allegiances to the regime (thanks to $1,000 savings accounts established in their name from birth)? In this modern era of eugenics, as immigrants are expelled while neo-Nazis spew hateful theories of "great replacement," it is no wonder American Eagle felt bold enough to declare that Sydney Sweeney has great genes. America must reject this renewed, government-endorsed eugenics. Scientists must think deeply about ramifications: Just because we can, or think we can, does not mean we should. IVF companies should be barred from making false promises about the heritability of traits like intelligence, BMI, and hair color. While fatal diseases like breast cancer are fair to select against, prospective parents should think twice about what is lost when selecting for subjective social norms. We all have great genes and we all deserve a society that embraces us, that makes us feel whole, and bold, and beautiful—like a pair of great jeans. Tania Fabo, MSc is an MD-PhD candidate in genetics at Stanford University, a Rhodes scholar, a Knight-Hennessy scholar, a Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, and a Public Voices fellow of The OpEd Project. Her PhD research focuses on the interaction between genetics and diet in colorectal cancer risk. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
