in a sentimental mood

anxiety, purple lipstick & a slight overbite

[tidepooling]

when you want to look cute but don’t want to be harassed by men #justgirlythings

[031793]

You can speak things into existence without giving details. I tell maybe four close people what I’m going after. Those people are highly positive and spiritual. I know they only want to best for me. Their energy with mine is what helps make things happen for me. Don’t go telling random people details. It will only harm you if their energy isn’t right. Be careful, but be faithful in your goals and the universe!

[wnq-anonymous]

Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself - what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.

Warsan Shire (via wnq-anonymous)

[browngurl]

[wocinsolidarity]

***brown skin poppin like oxtail gravy***

[oromaelewaon-deactivated2016051]

Mikadi Beach. Kigamboni.

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

[5centsapound]

[curate-deactivated20180503]

Binh Danh: Ancestral Altars

Using found photographs from the Khmer Rouge era, Binh Danh imprints the images on leaves through photosynthesis, creating a powerful link between the present and the past by alluding to the jungles that the war was fought in.

Artist Statement: 

In 1975-79, almost 2 million people lost their lives to murder and famine when the Khmer Rouge forced the urban population into the countryside to fulfill their ideal of an agrarian society. The Khmer Rouge—organized by their leader Pol Pot—arrested, tortured, and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed “enemies,” such as foreigners who were ethnic Vietnamese. In a Security Prison coded-named S-21, which was once a schoolhouse, 14,000 men, women and children were tortured and killed. Their testimony was meticulously documented to justify their execution. When Cambodia was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979, barely a dozen survived S-21.

While visiting this museum, I documented much of the interior. I roamed the rooms and hallways and imagined the horror taking place in front of me. As part of the the victims’ testimony, photographs were made of them. Today, what is left of the memories of these people are rooms and rooms of those portraits. The portraits are witnesses to history and they speak to us, holding us accountable. To honor these lives, I made altars of the dead—a place where we can meditate on history, the present moment, and our own mortality. I believe that even when faced with the truth that we will die someday, we can live a good life and do good for others.

5centsapound

[squeeofthemoment]

Cut-outs are in. We got the memo. With @samirawiley and @nicolebeharie. #PhotoBomb courtesy of @daniebb3. @Essencemag #Oscars (x)

Did you know all of us went to Juilliard? #essence #blackwomeninhollywood (x)

[acceber74]

YES!!!! YES!!! YES!!!!!

[africanstyleinsider]

[blackfashion]

Ajak Deng photographed by Charlie Engman for Vouge Daily (2/14/14). Styled by Jorden Bickham, hair and makeup by Asami Matsuda

[kitduckworth]

I usually take a walk after breakfast, write for three hours, have lunch and read in the afternoon. Demons don’t like fresh air - they prefer it if you stay in bed with cold feet; for a person who is as chaotic as me, who struggles to be in control, it is an absolute necessity to follow these rules and routines. If I let myself go, nothing will get done.

Ingmar Bergman

[silkwaste]

Homemade Body Scrub!

I usually go through a jar of this stuff a week. I use it everyday.

2 cups sugar(you can use white, or turbinado. I prefer turbinado as it is a larger grain, and more exfoliating, but I was out)

1-1 1/2 cups olive oil(I like my scrub to be less oily. Some like it to be more so. Figure out what you like)

A few drops of essential oils(I used pomander and rose water)

Combine all ingredients in a lidded jar. Mix well.

Super easy, and totally worth the 5 minutes it takes to make it. 

After I get out of the shower, I will wipe off the excess oil, and apply lotion over the top of it. My skin is ridiculously soft.

EEE>

(Be careful! This stuff can make your shower a little slippery!)

[silkwaste]

Here ya go, babes!

[yesyes]

Cities are smells: Acre is the smell of iodine and spices. Haifa is the smell of pine and wrinkled sheets. Moscow is the smell of vodka on ice. Cairo is the smell of mango and ginger. Beirut is the smell of the sun, sea, smoke, and lemons. Paris is the smell of fresh bread, cheese, and derivations of enchantment. Damascus is the smell of jasmine and dried fruit. Tunis is the smell of night musk and salt. Rabat is the smell of henna, incense and honey. A city that cannot be known by its smell is unreliable. Exiles have a shared smell: the smell of longing for something else; a smell that remembers another smell. A painting, nostalgic that guides you, like a worn tourist map, to the smell of the original place. A smell is a memory and a setting sun. Sunset, here, is beauty rebuking the stranger. But to love the sunset is not, as they say, one of the attributes of exile.

Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence (via yesyes)

[eatsleepsweat]

[streetculturebook]

The Stunning @djstiletto 

[twofigs]

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

[twofigs]

Czeslaw Milosz, Ars Poetica

[adeshua]

Leroy W. Henderson

[browngurl]