Black Girl With Long Hair

Black Girl with Long Hair is a website for African-American women. The website covers styling, hair care, culture, fashion, and hair growth. According to the website, the goal is dedicated to the ever-growing community of black and bi-racial women who choose to wear their hair naturally – with no use of chemicals and minimal use of heat, weave or extensions.^[1] The topics the website discusses range from regimen for natural, to celebrities, and to point- of-view pieces addressing current issues in the African-American community. While celebrating black beauty, Black Girl with Long Hair tackle issues concerning beauty norms.

History

Leila Noelliste, creator and editor, founded the website in 2009. She started as a newspaper reporter, and as a past-time, she would blog about natural hair. She felt that there was a lack of information around African-American natural hair. In late 2006, she did her big chop journey, and that’s how it all began.

Leila Noelliste

Leila Noelliste is an American editor, writer, blogger, and reporter. Noelliste is best known for her website Black Girl with Long Hair. The daughter of a Haitian father and an African-American mother, Noelliste was born in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb outside of Chicago, but grew up in Kingston, Jamaica.^[2] In 2006, she graduated from Wheaton College, receiving her bachelor's degree in Communications. In 2007, she began her career as a journalist with The Chicago Defender, a historically black newspaper, after shelving her dream of becoming a television writer.^[3] As a hobby, she would blog about her natural hair and share her journey. As she was laid-off her job, Noelliste decided to pursue blogging as a full-time job. Black Girl with Long Hair was officially introduced in 2008,^[4] and as of today, the site attracts more than 5 million monthly page views and is ranked in the top 29,000 websites worldwide by Alexa.com.^[5] She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and two kids.^[6]

Content

Black Girls with Long Hair produces daily content, in which the work staffs, contributors, and its community is featured. Popular topics on the website include hair care and culture articles related to the black community. The site content is divided into 5 sections: Styling (salons), Hair Care (deep conditioning, detangling, do it for less, edges + hairline, fine hair, length retention, moisturizing, oils + butter, protein treatments, scalp help, shedding + breakage, stretching + straightening, transitioning, trimming, washing), Culture, Style Icons (3B hair, 3C hair, 4A hair, 4B hair, 4C hair, locs, short hair, medium length, long hair, super long hair, brides), and 4B/4C Hair Growth Guide.^[7] The website allows viewers to continuously stay in touch with issues that are affecting the black community.

Contributors

•Chinwe, hair care writer: She blogs about healthy hair and health.

•Christina, hair care writer: She is a UCLA Alumni and she focuses on the approach of health hair. Apart from contributing to the job, she is the director of a program that helps prepare at-risk, inner-city students pursue higher education.

•Geniece, hair care writer: She was born in Jamaica and raised in Queens, New York.

•Jc, science writer: She received her BSc and PhD in mineral science; she blogs from a scientific view.

•Rinny, content editor: She blogs about pop culture.

References