Long before the global influence of Eurocentric beauty standards, the beauty of African women was celebrated daily. They possessed secrets to smooth skin, moisturized and intricate hairstyles, and the confidence and power of Asé. The Western world owes much to the traditions utilized from other cultures, and Africa's contributions to beauty are invaluable.
To understand your beauty regimens is to connect with your definition of beauty. The continuous growth of the world’s view of beauty can also be attributed to the secrets of African traditions that the unbeknownst Western world uses to this day.
Here's a look at some key aspects of African beauty traditions:
Natural Ingredients and Traditional Practices
Handmade and natural ingredients for soaps, creams, oils, and more have always been prioritized, just as they are now.
Shea Butter
Raw Shea butter has become one of the most popular and diverse products worldwide.
DIY: My Perfect Homemade Creamy Shea Butter (STAYS FLUFFY)
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The gorgeous gold and ivory colored raw Shea are mixed naturally by grinding and cold-pressing the raw Shea fruit into a buttery delight for so many of your skin and hair’s needs. Our Ivory and Gold Shea Butters are sourced in Nigeria and Ghana.
Karite tree yielding shea nuts (Vitellaria paradoxa)
Oils
The abundant uses of oils in traditional African beauty routines were centered around the essence of enticing scent and smoothness of the skin. A rich and nutritious oil made from the flesh of coconut called copra. The highly versatile and nourishing oil has been used for centuries by radiant African women.
LIHA offers our Idan Oil that’s mixed with the most engulfing scents from the Tuberose that’s listed as an ingredient.
Yoruba Queen Idia
Yoruba Queen Idia is a testament to the divine feminine. Ancient Egyptians were the first group to make and use candles to cast magical spells, similar to the incisions on Queen Idia's forehead that were the source of her mystical powers. Light a wick to our Queen India candle to transport yourself to an elevated state of mind.
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Let the hibiscus and lavender scents immerse you into the mysticism and divine feminine power that resides right in you to make your wishes come true. The traditional African principle of Asé is to center one’s own power to make their dreams come true. The Western world would call this manifesting. Both practices are rooted in the energy you put into your mindset and actions.
Find inner peace and tranquility with the blended scent of Frankincense, Petitgrain, and Ylang Ylang. Release feelings of stress and anxiety while being nurtured by this Goddesses’ mothering nature. The fruity smell this Goddess enthralls your usual want to be negative in thought. Take a plunge into risky waters with this Goddess. Try something new and ignite a new spark to your life with the merging scents of Orange, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang.
Take these beauty “secrets” and tend to your usual routine knowing a bit more about why you do what it is you do to reach your own standards of beauty.
African Art and Beauty
Westerners have collected African art for centuries. But do they really understand it? Who determines what is beautiful and what is ugly in African art? Can viewers judge art solely by the standards of beauty in their own culture? That’s the question a recent exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago sought to answer.
The collection was massive, taking up six or so rooms, filled with over 250 works of art from dozens of cultures across Sub-Saharan Africa. The idea is to put art in its cultural context.
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African Art
How did the local communities view these works of art? “For some African cultures, scarification, including on the face, is a way to enhance someone’s beauty - especially that of a woman. There’s often a religious aspect to these works. “So the art is not made just to be art,” says Constantine Petridis, chair and curator of arts of Africa at the Art Institute. “It’s art that serves a purpose, serves a function and has a meaning.
Masculinity is depicted with youthful, muscular bodies and large hands and feet. In many African cultures, the ideal male figure is tall and lean, with long limbs, an elongated neck and muscular calves.
The feminine ideal is voluptuous - big belly, rounded hips, a large butt - and sometimes sports a long neck. The ideal female figure has been a subject of fascination and inspiration for artists throughout history, and African art is no exception. In African sculpture, the ideal female figure is often depicted as having a curvaceous body with wide hips and full breasts.
While the exact proportions of the ideal female figure vary between African cultures, there are some common elements frequently seen across the continent.
Scarification is considered beautiful. This particular aspect of beauty is probably the most difficult for Westerners to grasp. (Then again, look at our obsession with tattoos.) Scarification, a form of body modification that involves creating designs or patterns on skin by cutting or branding, has been practiced for centuries.
In many African cultures, the concept of beauty is closely tied to morality and ethics. This is reflected in the use of a single word to describe both beauty and goodness. Smooth skin is attractive. While scarification has been a long-standing tradition in African art, the idea of smooth skin as a standard of beauty is also prevalent. In many African cultures, smooth, flawless skin is considered attractive, healthy and a sign of good hygiene. To achieve that look, some sculptures are polished to a bright shine using leaves or stones.
But the idea of beauty extends beyond the individual. Ugliness is tied to nature, the wilderness and animals, whereas beauty is connected to humans, the village and community.
There’s a duality common throughout Africa: culture vs. nature, community vs. the wilderness. As such, idealized beauty is always presumed to be of human origin, associated with the realm of the village and society. At the other end of the spectrum, ugliness correlates with the wild and untamed realm of the jungle outside the boundaries of the village.
“Artists who intend to instill fear through their objects may represent ugliness by mimicking or referencing animals, especially powerful and fearsome ones,” Petridis says. “Additional features will be incorporated into fantastic compositions that comprise elements sourced literally from the natural world - actual animal parts: hides, horns, teeth, fur.”
Some art has elements of both beauty and ugliness and is meant to astonish. Petridis refers to this as “awesome art,” what Westerners might call the sublime.
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder
When judging African art, see where there are overlaps or differences from your own preconceived notions, Petridis suggests. Always keep in mind that African art should always be viewed through the language and vocabulary of the culture it comes from.
“Beauty is essential and important and critical in the arts of Africa as well,” he concludes. “But it’s not necessarily the beauty that you as an outsider would see in it.”
To avoid imposing your own tastes and preferences on art objects, you have to be open to learn and read about the culture in which they function, and what meanings and purposes they convey. And that new understanding is a thing of beauty.
Colonialism and Its Impact
Colonialism began in the 15th century, when European countries like Britain, France, Portugal and Spain colonized lands across North and South America. These early colonizers wanted to exploit the resources of other countries in order to bolster their own economies and compete with one another over the glory of expansion.
By 1914, Europeans had colonized a large number of the world's nations, establishing colonies in Africa, the Americas and Asia.
Colonialism championed a social hierarchy that was rooted in what we know today as featurism, prejudice against individuals with facial features that deviate from Eurocentric beauty ideals; colorism, prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin; and texturism, the idea that only loose or defined curls deserve favoring or praise.
In these societies, an individual’s proximity to White, European beauty standards defined their social rank, worth and value. By the mid-20th century, many nations had achieved independence from their European colonial rulers. But today, society still favors people whose features are closest to the White ideal.
Map of the colonization of Africa in 1914
In Hollywood for example, the Black actors who are given the best roles in the industry have lighter skin, slimmer noses and loosely textured hair. Darker-skinned actors are less visible, and less likely to work.
Colorism impacts film industries globally. Nollywood movies seem to prefer actresses of a lighter complexion, and Bollywood star Freida Pinto has spoken extensively about how her darker skin disadvantages her. This difference in representation affects what kinds of beauty young people grow up seeing as acceptable and worthy.
“The remnants of colorism, featurism and texturism don’t only affect Hollywood. Everyday Black people are discriminated against for their hair textures and styles,” Petiri says.
For instance, in workplaces Black women face discrimination for the hairstyles they choose to wear like braids, dreadlocks and bantu knots. Dress code policies in schools also disproportionately target Black students’ hairstyles, a problem some lawmakers are trying to address with legislation.
In addition to these issues, there is a pattern in society of White people imitating Black features without acknowledging the stigma Black girls and women face for how we look. Features associated with Blackness, like full lips and dark skin, as well as styles that Black women created, like twists and Fulani braids, are praised when they are on White people and looked down upon when they are Black people.
Decolonizing Beauty Standards
Society needs to decolonize its beauty standards. People have to unteach themselves that being closer to Whiteness is the apex of beauty, worth and value. For this to happen, governments and policymakers need to impose restrictions on skin lightening and hair straightening products.
Society can also combat colorism, texturism and featurism by promoting diversity in education and media. Since young girls spend a lot of time consuming media and in educational spaces, it is important that these spaces are fully representative of the world.
These days, Black representation is often limited to one type of Black person who matches the status quo. We need to see more Black people in television, textbooks, magazines and illustrations who have tighter curls, darker skin tones and Afrocentric features. We need to see more Black people of different shapes and sizes. More diverse representation of Black people will make the beauty ideal less rigid.
I also believe that within the Black community and in Black families we have to embrace who we are more and not use proximity to Whiteness as a measure of our worth and attractiveness. Only then can we begin to heal from the trauma beauty standards have had on our self-esteem.
A-Beauty: African Beauty Techniques
The history of African Beauty, or A-Beauty, is of particular note in the beauty industry because of the cross-functionality of common ingredients and a focus on local sourcing. Often, ingredients could be used for both skincare and haircare, with different applications. African Beauty techniques stemmed from finding ways to make do with what was locally available at the time.
With links between hair, skin, and make-up, here are some of the most notable gems from Africa’s beauty history.
Black Hair Secrets
Due to its unique structure and texture, Black hair can be challenging to care for and style. It also has unique properties found in no other kind of hair, and many parts of Africa have developed hair techniques that are dependent on the location and the natural resources available.
African Hair Threading
African hair threading is also known as “Irun Kiko” among the Yoruba people of Nigeria, a West African country where this practice is noted as early as the 15th century. To the Yorubas, the hair was considered as important as the head, and caring for both was believed to bring good fortune. Threading and weaving were the main ways this was carried out.
Examples of hair threading
The threaded hair was then twisted and manipulated into shapes and decorated with ornaments such as cowrie shells and beads, which were used to indicate social class and personal style. Beyond its spiritual and social significance, threading was also a simple way for women to stretch their hair or retain length as this style protected the hair from breakage.
Chébé Powder
Threading techniques were only one aspect of hair care, and natural elements were used to keep hair healthy, regardless of style. Sourced from the Northern Chad mountains in Central Africa, the seeds of the Chébé plant were rumored to be the secret to the long, lustrous hair of women of the Bassara/Baggara Arab tribe in Chad.
Map of Chad in central Africa
