Bold & Bella

The longer I live, the more invested I become in taking care of myself. I can honestly say that I feel a hundred times better now, in my 30s, than I ever did in my 20s, and it's because I started investing more in my self-care. I started reading labels (no, not the name brand kind, the food kind) around my 25th birthday, when my eczema and hypertension decided to make their glorious, highly inconvenient and highly uncomfortable appearance in my life. I watched everything from what I ate to what I put on my skin, but didn't give much thought to what was in my beauty products (yes, I know that goes on your skin too. I don't make sense!) Let me give you a little backstory... A few months before my 31st birthday, I went to the dermatologist to finally do something drastic about my acne. Almost 2 months and several hundred dollars later, my face looked worse than it ever had before AND I was in pain. I read about women turning to vegan diets and beauty products to cure the...

"Most women, regardless of where they grew up or what their cultural background is, have been taught essentially that to be a good woman is to be good for other people." That is a direct quote from Rachel Hollis' book, Girl, Stop Apologizing. The first part of the book is dedicated to exploring the excuses that women use for not pursing their dreams or living their authentic lives. In the very first chapter, she addresses the excuse that speaks to me the most: "It's not What Other Women Do." What does this mean?  It means that we hold ourselves back from doing and saying the things that we truly want to do and say because it's just not what we're "supposed" to do. I could go on and on about the expectations placed on women in our world, but the POINT is that those expectations have a tendency to shape the way we THINK, and our thoughts are what drive our words and actions...so those are pretty important. The issue is that we have ...

I haven't always been a curly girl. From ages 6-19, I was all about #teamcream and would get my hair permed every 4-6 months. Seeing some bald spots around my hairline in my sophomore year of college was all I needed to start letting my natural hair grow out, but I would still straighten it into submission on a weekly (*ahem* daily *ahem*) basis. Finally, 6 years ago, I jumped on the Big Chop bandwagon and cut off most of my hair (we're talking high-pony-tail-and-scissors-DIY-style hair cut...not my finest moment). The whole point of embracing my natural hair was to make my life easier, but I had no idea that the learning curve for this new way of doing things was the size of Mount Everest. The most challenging part? The vocabulary!  By the time I jumped onto #teamnatural, there were already some YouTubers and some books about curly hair, but they were pretty hard to follow because I had no idea what they were talking about. Every other word was one that I'd never h...

So many people are living unsatisfied. They wake up, they go to work, they pay their bills, but there's something missing. Most of us need a reason to get up in the morning. Not just any reason, but one that compels us to get up and get going. A purpose. So many people are frustrated because they haven't found their purpose, and they will keep going around in circles until they realize a fundamental truth. See, your life's purpose isn't something that you figure out. That implies that you're just supposed to stumble upon it, or that the heavens will open up one day and you'll be able to look up and see exactly what you're supposed to be doing with your life. That sounds amazing, but it's made for movies, not for real life. You get to CHOOSE how you want to live.  What's going to get you out of bed every morning? What excites and motivates you? What do you WANT your life to stand for? Choose that thing and then live to fulfill it on purpose. Then...

DevaCurl was my go-to holy grail for curly hair. I read The Curly Girl Method, bought all of the products, and followed the directions to the T to develop my curls into beautiful, defined little ringlets. Any time someone asked me how I took care of my curls, I would strongly suggest investing in this brand and gush about how it was worth every single penny. SO, needless to say, I found myself in quite the pickle after the whole scandal that happened back in January (February?...definitely earlier this year. Honestly, 2020 has been so long that it feels like all of this happened years ago but ANYWAY).  Fortunately, I'd experimented for years with different products and routines (shout out to my fellow product junkies!) I was trying to find alternatives to DevaCurl's prices, and I finally understood that I have to switch things up every now and then, as any die hard Curly Girl knows. I knew I could use lines like Kinky Curly and Not Your Mother's Curl Talk, but I was...

Your affirmations are either working for your or against you, depending on how you use them.  I read this quote in a book that I've been meaning to read for years but just barely got around to, The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod. When I first read it, my immediate thought was: All. The. Yessess!!! ...or something along those lines. There's such a surprisingly negative connotation to the word, "affirmations," as if the only people that use them are weirdos who like to talk to themselves, or hippies. To be clear, though, anything you say out loud about yourself (or repeat constantly in your mind) is an affirmation. You repeat it enough times and it will become part of your subconscious, and ultimately impact your level of success in life. (Yes, I am aware of the hippie-ness of what I just said, but stay with me). If that sounds odd to you, let's add some perspective. How many healthy, successful people do you hear saying things like, "I'm so br...

Let me tell you a story... Several years ago (I think I was actually pregnant with my firstborn, and he's 8 now) I went to get the brakes checked on my mom's car. I'm an extremely chatty and friendly person, and so I'm talking to the guy who's helping me and he's telling me about how he changed his entire life by juicing. He'd watched a documentary, decided to change his life, bought a juicer, and there he was, standing in front of me, a full 80 lbs lighter than when he'd started "just eight months ago!" Fascinated, I listened intently, looked at his before and after pictures, and when he asked me if I'd like to try some of the juice that he just happened to have in the employee break room, I said, "Of course I would!" I followed him to the refrigerator took the cup he handed me with a little bit of this orange liquid and despite the fact that my mama taught me better than to take strange drinks from literal strangers, I t...