- 15 hours ago
MoAna Luu talks about global beauty at Essence Fest Beauty Carnival 2019
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Told y'all we got more coming up. We got another panel moderated by the Essence Magazine Global Beauty Director, Miss Julie Wilson.
00:12Hey guys, I'm back. Did you miss me? Okay, I missed y'all.
00:19So I have a really, really, really special guest next, and we are taping this for my podcast called The Color Files.
00:30If you have not downloaded Color Files, you should. It's going to be amazing.
00:35You get to hear me talking to really amazing, important people, which one of them is coming out now.
00:41So let me tell you a little bit about Moana Lou. Moana Lou is a Caribbean-born powerhouse, a creative leader, a producer, a philanthropist, and interior designer with an extensive background in media.
00:55She was born in Martinique, and having lived in Paris and the Philippines, just to name a few, she is no stranger to documenting and celebrating global culture.
01:04I want you all, and she is Essence Family, I'd like you all to give it up for our Chief Content and Creative Officer, Moana Lou.
01:14Hey guys, how are you? Hey!
01:17Oh my god, it's amazing!
01:20How are you?
01:21How are you?
01:22This is so good.
01:24Well, I get to be, bask in the beauty of this woman every single day, so.
01:30We're hopefully going to give you a little taste of, like, what we talk about in the office, how we create the amazing, everything from the covers, to the stories inside the magazine, and to the website, because we have a lot of fun.
01:44Yes, it's been, like, amazing since I joined the family, the Essence family, last fall.
01:49We've been creating amazing covers, and thanks to you, Julie, and the fabulous Essence team.
01:56And it's true that we're going into a global direction, we want to represent every black woman worldwide, from the Caribbean, from Africa, from the diaspora in Europe, and you can feel it in the magazine.
02:10You can feel it on Essence.com, and you can feel it on your podcast.
02:15Oh yes, colour files, y'all. Plug.
02:17Um, but, it's really exciting.
02:20We've been doing some really amazing things, and, you know, I recently became a global beauty director.
02:26Thank you, Moana Lu.
02:28Yes, yes.
02:28You know, we are taking Essence global.
02:30This is not just about, you know, black women here, because y'all are, we're important, but we are everywhere, right?
02:37We are all across the globe, and we're making sure that we celebrate them.
02:41And you are a global beauty, you hail from Martinique, but you've lived in the Philippines, you've lived in Paris.
02:47Can you talk to us a little bit about what that means to you, global beauty, and celebrating it in the black community?
02:54You know, black women are all around the globe, and it's important, like, to, as a reminder, that we are all black.
03:01No difference.
03:02We are all black.
03:03We share one culture, and this is very interesting, because when you look at the traditions, the braids, from Ghana, and how we're doing the braids here in the U.S., are everything that you use from different cultures.
03:18And, you know, I've been living in the Philippines, and for me, the Philippines was the Caribbean of Asia.
03:23We were between this mix of European culture, because they were Spanish, but as well with Asian culture.
03:30And this is actually what's next for our generation, is, like, to remind us that we are one global community, and we want to be together, because together, we are stronger.
03:41We are. We are.
03:43Now, because, have you seen any really cool trends, or anything that, you know, ties us together around the globe, but also makes it different?
03:51Because I can imagine that, you know, the beauty regimen and, you know, philosophy in Martinique is different from the black girl in New York, but then there's also some commonalities.
04:04Yes, and, you know, this is something very important that just happened a few days in California with the Crown Act.
04:10What we've seen, like, in Africa and the Caribbean, even in Europe, is women going back to be natural.
04:18I remember I shaved my hair, like, about five or five years ago, totally shaved to do, like, my big shop.
04:25And many, many women actually did embrace their natural hair, and I think that is one of the movements that we've seen in Europe and the Caribbean,
04:33and women, like, accepting and know to learn how they can actually do things with their hair, and as well as to use, like, products that from your home.
04:43Like, we can use, like, with an avocado, you can do a treatment mask for your hair.
04:49You know, little tips that actually are just there, and this is what I've seen and what women have changed in their culture to embrace their culture to create their own products.
04:59Yeah, and I think that's coming together more and more.
05:02Like, you mentioned the Crown Act, right?
05:05If you guys go over to the Dove activation at some point, you need to sign the Crown Act.
05:10It is about decriminalizing the way that we wear our hair.
05:14There should be no laws, rules against how we rock our natural hair.
05:19How our hair grows out of our head should not be dictated by the government or anyone else.
05:24So it's really important to sign that act and make sure just two days ago, on July 3rd, it was passed in California.
05:31So we're really excited about that, and we're just going to sweep that across the nation and make sure.
05:38And it's a global thing, like you said.
05:39We need to make sure that that happens in other countries as well, because we've seen our hair be politicized and criminalized and, you know, tear us down across the world because people don't understand our beauty.
05:51Yeah.
05:52And Essence is here to make them know what's up.
05:55And this is what we've been doing in the page of the magazine.
05:58When you look at all our beauty stories, we want to be inclusive of every skin tone and every genre.
06:06You know, the black beauty is diverse, and we want to show this diversity.
06:10And when we see, like, the beauty stories that you did, Julie, about, like, we have the albinos.
06:17We have, like, every...
06:18Oh, yeah.
06:19I don't know if any of you guys saw the beauty feature we did in the April issue, which is one of our beauty issues.
06:25But we wanted to celebrate, you know, the diversity of our beauty because we're not a monolith, right?
06:31Just looking out here, we see so many skin tones.
06:34We see so many shapes.
06:36We see so many hair textures.
06:38But, you know, there's...
06:39We have vitiligo.
06:41We have, you know, we have freckles.
06:43We have, you know, so many different things about our beauty.
06:46It's so hard to put us in a box.
06:48And this is the mission of Essence today.
06:50It's, like, embrace yourselves.
06:52Stay true and authentic to who you are.
06:55You don't need to create somebody else because you are enough.
06:58And this is what we try to share every day in the work that we do.
07:02Beauty, it's...
07:04You have your own beauty.
07:06You don't need to be in any code.
07:08You want to change the color, you change the color.
07:11You want to shave, you shave.
07:12You do whatever you want.
07:14This is your body and you decide for your body.
07:15We don't discriminate.
07:16No, you decide for your body.
07:17If you want to relax her, go ahead, sis.
07:19We still celebrate you.
07:20If you want to wear a weave down to the floor, we celebrate you.
07:23If you want to shave your head, your whole hair off, we celebrate you.
07:27Because that is the beauty of us.
07:29And, like, I'm biased, but I think we are the most beautiful, dope, fly people in the whole entire world.
07:36Look at the woman on this floor.
07:38Right?
07:38Okay, I got some claps out there.
07:39Yep, yep, yep, yep.
07:41Come on.
07:41We are so fly.
07:43And I feel like we represent that a lot in the office, like Moana was saying, with the stories that we do.
07:49But you have to understand how unique it is to come to the office every day and be surrounded by black women.
07:57Like, I mean, we do not take that for granted.
08:00And the fact that, like, you know, we represent everything in the office, too.
08:06And it's, like, not weird to see, like, me and my beauty squad in our, like, corner, like, greasing our scalp with some new, like, hair grease that, like, came to the office.
08:17Or putting on a mask.
08:18Or Moana's caught me at my desk, like, putting on eyelashes.
08:21Eyelashes.
08:22Yes.
08:22This is our office.
08:24I'm, like, I'm not going out.
08:25I'm literally just trying some new product.
08:28This is so good.
08:29This is true that Essence is black girl magic headquarters.
08:33We living differently, we embrace everything that we do every day, and we understand our sense of beauty and fashion.
08:41Beauty is the core element in our black culture.
08:45We are defining the genre, the trend globally.
08:48We've seen people, we call it appropriation or inspiration.
08:52But we are shaping the culture for mainstream culture.
08:58And the conversation.
08:59And the conversation.
09:00It's what we are doing at Essence is to show to the world, by the way, we are the one creating it.
09:06Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about your personal beauty.
09:09Because is she not a vision?
09:11Yeah.
09:12Hello.
09:13Get into the face.
09:14Get into the hair.
09:15All of that.
09:16We're always just, like, Moana, yes.
09:18And she'll, like, put, like, white, like, eyeliner, dots.
09:23Like, all of those, like, tribal markings and stuff.
09:25She'll just, like, show up into the office, like, casual Tuesday with this on her face.
09:29And we're like, oh, my God.
09:30So I want you to talk a little bit about your own personal beauty journey.
09:34Like, how you grew up, one, in Martinique and talking about that.
09:39But also how you, like, products you love, how you get up every day and you present yourself to the world.
09:45So the first thing that's been important in my beauty journey is being to take care of my skin.
09:54Skin is a key element.
09:56People, we love makeup.
09:58And as you can see, I love makeup.
10:01But the skin is the key element to have the great makeup.
10:04So I'm trying to always exfoliate, doing masks, try to every cream, like Estée Lauder, cream, and drama, like, advanced night repair.
10:13I've been, and this is a really good story.
10:16Estée Lauder is over there, too, y'all.
10:17Yes.
10:17Make sure you go into the beauty carnival because Estée Lauder is here, y'all.
10:21And this is a little story.
10:22That's been funny because one day I was in Martinique with my girlfriends.
10:26And, you know, we were watching a magazine.
10:28And we have a sample of our product.
10:30And I didn't want to go up and to take my product.
10:33So I just put this advanced night repair.
10:34You know the samples that you get in, like, the magazine?
10:37The magazine.
10:37Yeah.
10:38And when I woke up, my girlfriend was like, oh, my God, you look so good.
10:42They were like, what do you mean I look so good?
10:43I'm not looking good in the morning?
10:45It's like, no, your skin looks so good.
10:48And since that, it's been 15 years.
10:51Advanced night repair?
10:52I'm addicted to it.
10:53Colt favorite.
10:55But, yeah, they're over there.
10:56So make sure you go and see Estée Lauder because they're giving out, like, full-size products.
11:01And this is true that everybody's always asking me about my hair journey.
11:06And I have to say that.
11:07Tell us about your hair, girl.
11:09The real trick is actually I never put heat on my hair.
11:14You never put what on your hair?
11:15Heat.
11:16Heat.
11:16No heat on her hair.
11:17Yes.
11:18Oh, no.
11:18And now I'm starting to do it because representation.
11:22But I'm trying to, no blow dry.
11:25Always stay, like.
11:26I know I made a stink face because I'm like, I put heat on my hair sometimes.
11:30But I like to switch it up.
11:32Sometimes I want to give you an afro.
11:33You know, it changed.
11:34Sometimes I want to give you a blowout.
11:36Sometimes I want to give you braids.
11:38Like, I got to switch it up.
11:39Yeah, but it changed the pattern of your curls.
11:43So it's very hard for me when after I put heat to go back to my natural curls.
11:47It's a little bit different.
11:49But I can tell that now I'm doing it because we're doing so much even.
11:53So we put so much product in there.
11:55So at the end, I need to do some heat.
11:58But as well, I'm trying to once a week only comb my hair.
12:04It's too long.
12:05I have no time for that.
12:06So just let it's like.
12:08Now, do you wash your hair like once a week or is it like every two weeks?
12:12No, it's once a week because my curls change after four or five days.
12:17So once a week, I do like the big moment.
12:21My husband don't like that.
12:22I stay in the shower for one hour because I cannot do it on dry hair.
12:26Don't do that.
12:27This is a big mistake.
12:29So all my hair are wet.
12:31I put a good conditioner in and then I comb my hair.
12:35It's ready for 30 minutes of muscle and exercise.
12:38Yes.
12:39But after that, it's good.
12:41I love it.
12:41So I want you to talk a little bit about how you're kind of juggling it all because being
12:47the chief content and creative officer for Essence is a lot.
12:51We're doing a lot.
12:52We're not just a magazine, not just a website.
12:54We do live events.
12:56We do podcasts, all of these things.
12:58Right.
12:58But you're also a wife.
12:59You're also a mother to a little cute little four-year-old boy running around.
13:03I'm sure you guys will see him.
13:05How do you juggle all of this and still look like this?
13:11I didn't make a choice.
13:12I'm not cooking.
13:14You're not cooking?
13:15No, I'm not cooking.
13:17I told my husband, you have two choices.
13:20I look good or I cook.
13:22I look good or I cook.
13:25You know what?
13:25I'm going home from New Orleans.
13:28I'm going to walk in the house and be like, baby, either I look good or I cook.
13:33I don't think that would fly in my house, but your husband is way more tolerant.
13:40No, but you know, it's like, it's a 30-minute process to do all of that every morning.
13:46Yeah.
13:47So it's not easy.
13:48So you need to make some choice.
13:50Yeah.
13:50So I did the choice and he was like, look good.
13:53I got to cook.
13:54So I was like, good deal.
13:56And what about your son?
13:58What is it like to have a young black boy raising this young black boy in the world and also being a great example to him and all of those things?
14:09And this is that my son is really my inspiration daily because he makes all those culture because actually my husband is Chinese, French, and I'm from the Caribbean, Caribbean engine.
14:22And to actually to bring him here at the festival was very important that to see the diversity of black culture and as well to see how everybody is different, but we are all the same.
14:34And raising him, it's like changed my perception of life and watching him, it's like when I'm doing my makeup, he's going to sit on me and watch.
14:43I was like, why are you?
14:45You have your eyelash there.
14:46And I'm like, yes, I know.
14:47I know.
14:48It's fine.
14:48This is weird, but this is my eyelash and don't touch it.
14:51My son, we have sons the same age.
14:55They're both four years old, about to be five this summer, right?
14:57Yours is about to be five this summer.
14:59Yes.
14:59And my son takes off my eyelashes.
15:02This is an Instagram moment.
15:03You need to follow her to follow her every night.
15:06He loves it.
15:07I'll walk in the door and I get down to kiss him and he looks at me real close like, is she wearing them today?
15:14And then he gets really excited and he knows that I'm going to pull out my phone and then start doing the video.
15:20And he has a line.
15:21He's like, time to take mommy's eyelashes off.
15:24And then he takes them off.
15:26The first time he did it, he was just freaked out.
15:28He was like, what is going on?
15:29Your whole body is falling apart.
15:32But it is fun to like share that with our sons and to show them what strong black women look like.
15:39And yeah, and the very funny part is actually before I used to relax my hair.
15:44And so when you will see like, I was like, oh, why do you have hair in the house everywhere?
15:51You're like, the hair is just in all the pockets of the house.
15:55Yes, because I'm like wigs and like a ponytail and stuff.
15:59And it was like, this is very odd.
16:01This is odd.
16:01Like most people just walk around with the hair on their head and you've got hair all around the house.
16:06But that's the beauty of being a black woman because we can do that and look fly.
16:10So before we get off the stage, because it's so special that we have Moana here because she is running around this whole city going to all of the things.
16:20As chief, like I said, as chief content and creative officer, she's got to touch all the places.
16:24But before you leave, can you please tell everyone about what they can anything new that's coming down the pipeline for essence, you know, definitely in the beauty space, but also just in general, you know, Moana is also designing our new headquarters.
16:39Like, there's a lot of stuff going on in essence.
16:42We're really excited.
16:42This is incredible because we've been doing the transformation of the essence brand since few months.
16:48And as you can see today at the essence festival, before it used to be the essence music festival.
16:54Then it became the essence festival.
16:56And now it's going to be the essence festival of culture with all those new activation and activities that you can do.
17:03I don't know if you've been to the fashion house at Galerie Hall, but it's amazing.
17:07The best of black fashion is there.
17:10You have fashion shows, you have a marketplace, you have panels.
17:13The wellness house is already sold out.
17:16Yes, I can tell women are going to do yoga with this heat.
17:21I don't know how they're going to do that.
17:23I know there's a wellness house, y'all.
17:25And so, you know, yoga and talking about self-care because that's also part of beauty.
17:30You know, we made a wellness house and we have beauty carnival, but we all know that pouring into ourselves and making ourselves look beautiful
17:36is a part of self-care and wellness.
17:38Yes, totally.
17:39And as well about owning our black wealth.
17:42So we have the Global Black Economic Forum.
17:44I've been this morning and all the CEOs doing a round table because we want to own our black wealth.
17:51And we are doing all those activation and for people to see and stay awoke and control their narrative.
17:58You know that for Saturday, we have the 2020 candidate coming because we know that black women can change
18:06the nature of the future of the U.S.
18:08So we want you to be aware and ask the questions.
18:10So basically, what we've been building for her, for black women at Essence, is a platform where she can be here
18:19and she can be sharing her stories in every way, in a global way.
18:23Because we are from Brooklyn, New York, Lagos, Nigeria, Caribbean, Belgium.
18:31We are from everywhere.
18:33Africa, the continent.
18:35I mean.
18:35Yes, yes.
18:36And you will see it in the content and you're going to see we continue to expand.
18:40And this is true.
18:41We are cool.
18:43We are transgenerational.
18:45We are uplifting women.
18:47We are a positive brand because we believe in you.
18:50Yes, thank you.
18:51And that is a beautiful way to end this.
18:54Can you all help me in thanking Moana Liu, the Chief Content and Creative Officer of Essence, for being here?
19:00Thank you, Moana.
19:00Thank you so much, Julie.
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