Essence Fest 2026 is glowing, and we're diving deep into "The Beauty We Inherit"! Join us as we explore the profound connection between beauty, ritual, and the wisdom passed down through generations of Black women.
Discover how the women who raised us shaped not just our reflections, but our very identities. This inspiring conversation highlights the enduring legacy of beauty rituals, from intricate hairstyles to steadfast self-care, that empower us to navigate the world with confidence and grace.
Hear firsthand accounts from an incredible panel as they share personal stories and profound insights into the love, care, and intentionality that define Black women's beauty. This is more than just makeup and hair; it's about heritage, strength, and the powerful truths we carry within us.
#EssenceFest #BlackBeauty #BeautyRituals #GenerationalWisdom
Discover how the women who raised us shaped not just our reflections, but our very identities. This inspiring conversation highlights the enduring legacy of beauty rituals, from intricate hairstyles to steadfast self-care, that empower us to navigate the world with confidence and grace.
Hear firsthand accounts from an incredible panel as they share personal stories and profound insights into the love, care, and intentionality that define Black women's beauty. This is more than just makeup and hair; it's about heritage, strength, and the powerful truths we carry within us.
#EssenceFest #BlackBeauty #BeautyRituals #GenerationalWisdom
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:06i can't hear y'all because it's so loud in here but if you're having a good time put a
00:08hand in
00:09the air put some hands in the air if you all are having a good time essence festival 2026
00:15so listen we are going to get into the beauty that we inherit now i got a question for you
00:20guys
00:21what do we inherit from the women who came before us not just what's in the mirror but the rituals
00:27the wisdom the truths passed down that shape how we build and how we move forward this conversation
00:35is going to be a really good one because it's going to be based on all of those things so
00:39joining
00:40us for this next conversation is our moderator kayla greaves and she will be joined by diane
00:46valentine and janelle stevens so please give it up for these lovely ladies as they make their way onto
00:52the stage hi everybody how are you feeling we're at essence fest 2026 and this is my first essence
01:02fest believe it or not so let's get right to it all right the first person i want to introduce
01:06is diane valentine of slay hair hey look at this look at her purse that is from her brand just
01:15by the
01:15way and the second person is janelle stevens of camille rose how are you guys doing how are you feeling
01:30yes good good essence essence best 2026 yes okay so as black women we know that for us beauty is
01:40about
01:41more than just a product you know from our counter to the target shelves you guys are retail that
01:48this is about ritual it's about passing things down from generation to generation it's about love
01:55it's about care and that's why we have such an attachment and why the brands that we use mean so
02:04much to us and we don't just take it for granted right so for you guys growing up who was
02:10the
02:11beauty authority that you saw who gave you the example of what beauty looks like well for me of
02:17course my mother and my grandmother i mean that's who you see first you live with them and just growing
02:25up i always say even for my brand camille rose i dedicated to my grandmother because she was the
02:32original camille rose i mean she lived until she was 99 rarely went to a doctor and she made her
02:41her own concoction so i get it from my grandmother beautiful complexion and then even my mom like when
02:48they dressed and did did their hair they took pride in it self-care was a must in our home
02:56and they dress
02:58with intention so it's definitely the women that raised me my grandmother and my mom i would have to agree
03:06with you for me it was my it started with my grandma mary and she was a stepper honey let
03:11me tell you so
03:12on saturday she would get her hair washed she would press it she would put her finger waves down to
03:18one
03:18side she'd be ready for church on sunday morning so for me learning how to show up at my best
03:25started
03:26with my grandmother and then my mother she was like the neighborhood beauty girl like she took care of all
03:32my friends she took care of my sisters she had hair down to her booty like she was just like
03:38the
03:38quintessential woman and it wasn't just about beauty as in being beautiful but it was really about beauty
03:45as understanding that as black women it's part of the armor that we put on every day it's how we
03:52put on
03:52our wardrobe and how we go out into the world and in certain situations where the world hasn't been kind
03:58to us beauty allows it to us to to walk with a shield of protection i think it's all about
04:05being
04:06intentional because growing up i know my mom and grandmother they went to the beauty salon every week
04:13if not every week every two weeks so it was all about being intentional and um just passing you know
04:21those rituals down is a must absolutely and i think it's so much about joy and pleasure and
04:28happiness and play and self-adornment so you guys speak so highly of these women in your lives what
04:33was the first beauty ritual you remember seeing from them and what did it teach you about pleasure
04:39and how you control that for yourself
04:43you know for me it was watching my mother wash my hair like it was such a moment you know
04:51it was every
04:52weekend and it wasn't just washing my hair but it was you know massaging my scalp it was singing to
04:59me
04:59while i was laying in the shampoo bowl it was telling me over and over and over again that i
05:05was
05:05beautiful and that i was worthy and that my hair was like my crown you know and that it was
05:11something
05:11that i should be proud of and so growing up you know for her it was about instilling not just
05:19beauty
05:19rituals but confidence and you know admiration for just being a black woman it's just it's love it's
05:26showing love yeah it's love and it's organic it's natural because uh just watching you know um our moms
05:35and grandmothers they're just naturally taking care of themselves and so it's just um organically and
05:43naturally passed on to their babies um i remember just watching my grandmother she had a vanity in
05:51her bedroom and every night she would take her cold cream and just rub it on her skin her skin
05:58was
05:58amazing and then she would grease her scalp that was the thing to do and then do a hundred strokes
06:06brushing your hair a hundred times per night so it's all a part of that self-care that she
06:13they didn't realize that they were naturally like setting the standards for their babies
06:19and i want to touch on that point too because i think that when we're used to seeing these things
06:23growing up and we're used to these being our rituals we almost not take it for granted but we
06:27don't even realize that there's anything different than that right so when you guys have created these
06:31product lines created two incredible product lines what are something that you thought was just
06:36kind of like the way it is but then you had this like aha moment you're like wait i need
06:40to include
06:41this in my brand ethos or products or whatever so for me definitely camille rose it was all about
06:47ingredients and uh going back natural i went on this whole quest for okay i gotta find things that
06:55work i gotta find ingredients herbs that really contribute to what um how we are embracing our hair today
07:05because um the world was moving away from chemicals and relaxers and we had to really embrace our style
07:13and embrace what we were born with and teach ourselves how to care for that so um just finding i
07:22i i knew that
07:23it was my purpose to make sure the the products that i made for camille rose was rich in moisture
07:30so that when
07:32you used the camille rose products you really saw a difference in your hair you know for me when i
07:38created sleigh synthetic braiding hair it was really about fixing a problem you know i couldn't understand
07:46why synthetic hair had been around since the 70s and black woman after black woman was talking about the
07:53severe itching the scalp irritation uh the scabbing redness and i just thought why is it this way you know
08:01why
08:02has nobody fixed this this synthetic hair has been around for so long and for some reason black women
08:08are so conditioned to suffer in silence and i just thought this can't be normal like this this can't
08:14be it and i searched high and low for synthetic products that could be better because we all want
08:19to wear braids we all want a protective style and we want to be able to do it affordable we
08:25don't all
08:25want to spend a hundred dollars a bundle on hair for braids that you're going to wear one time
08:29and they only last six weeks about and they only last in this economy oh my god yes and so
08:36i just
08:36couldn't believe that it hadn't been fixed and for me it was a white space in our industry and it
08:42was a
08:42place where i felt like i could make a difference i could find my purpose i could serve black women
08:48and create something that was softer cleaner better healthier for us and then we could use camille rose
08:55products to finish it all i love that well i mean who's better to create for ourselves yes but us
09:02you know we create products for us by us so um but i'm glad you're solving that problem thank you
09:10i'm
09:10glad you're solving that problem we are we definitely need to educate educate and it it takes a village
09:18and you know i love what both of you guys are doing because you know obviously black women are the
09:23highest
09:23consumers when it comes to beauty out of every racial group there is in america we spend the
09:29most but at the same time we're not represented when it comes to who's working behind these who's
09:34making the products for a lot of us um you talked about you know we're conditioned to suffer in silence
09:39a lot of the times because things are just not made with us in mind so if you guys could
09:43spend a day
09:45with a beauty executive and take them to like a black woman's home or introduce them to some black
09:50women who have you know heavy beauty rituals what would you want them to learn from that experience
09:55about the way that we approach beauty yeah for me i think it's um our creativity how we take pride
10:02in
10:02ourselves our beauty routines our rituals and how our hair matters to us skin matters to us and ingredients
10:12the importance of them matter to us we don't want to use anything toxic i think it would be so
10:19important for beauty executives to understand that black women are not monolithic it is not one size
10:27fits all it is not one shampoo for all black textures right our blackness comes in many different shades
10:34of brown our hair texture comes in many different textures and i'm sorry but the products that have
10:40been on the marketplace have underserved our community which is why so many black beauty founders
10:46are not only releasing these amazing brands but we are thriving because we understand that our needs
10:52are different from other ethnic groups and that's okay we just want to be served the best
10:58and we deserve that like why i think oftentimes it's our birthright it's our birthright i think oftentimes
11:04we look at beauty and we think of it as this torturous thing or this laborious thing and i really
11:10want to
11:10read crap that for black women why can't it be a place for us to showcase our creativity
11:14why can't it be a place for us to have joy and pleasure and just you know show who we
11:19are to
11:19the world through the way that we wear our hair or the clothes we wear or whatever you know um
11:25you know that being said we are a minority in this space and there are times when it's so easy
11:32to
11:32second guess yourself am i doing the right thing does the market want this am i putting out the right
11:38product tell me about a time when you guys have had to really hold on tight to your instincts and
11:43just
11:44say i'm doing the right thing despite what outside force are saying despite what other people are
11:49saying you know that's such a great question because when i started developing slay so many
11:55people told me it wouldn't work because i wanted synthetic hair that felt like human hair i wanted
12:02hair i wanted to put hair in my head which by the way it does i touched that back it
12:06feels so good get into
12:08it but i felt like black women deserve synthetic product that felt like our own hair right why does
12:15it have to feel like a brillo pad that we use to clean out the oven it should be soft
12:20it should be
12:21silky you guys it should flow it should have body my locks is feeling like a brillo pad i need
12:26i need some slay it's okay next time you'll get slay you'll get slay next time
12:35she got a lifetime supply of slay period love that
12:42but yes absolutely so for me god when i started camille rose i started in my kitchen formulating for myself
12:49and i had no idea how to get a manufacturer to help me produce the products
12:58more of products that i needed for my retail stores so what i did was i had to
13:06find a laboratory somebody who believed in the same things that i believed in and i got so many no's
13:13ingredients because of the ingredients that i used um the what was it about the ingredients that people
13:20were saying we use food grade ingredients we use real ingredients we use ingredients that you could
13:27pronounce we use a lot of herbs and the chemists did they didn't want to do that they wanted me
13:34to
13:35use something synthetic because i could save 10 cents and i refused to do that so my very first target
13:44was
13:45my first retailer and i sat in target for a year and a half still hand making every one of
13:52my products
13:53because yes it wow very difficult well you wait tell us about that process yeah what was that like
14:00difficult difficult difficult and it took everything out of me however i did not want to change my formulas
14:08at all i built camille rose on my website first of course and um when i launched in target i
14:17didn't want
14:17my consumer to go to the retailer get the product and it's it's different and so um i got so
14:26many you don't
14:28have to use that ingredient um it's okay this one's cheaper and it'll do the same thing and i refused
14:36so
14:37it took me a lot of um research and grinding trying to find a perfect partner who believed in the
14:46same
14:46things that i believed in when it came to came to formulating and ingredients and it took me about a
14:52year and a half so but i i used my um my kitchen as my own manufacturer and i pulled
15:00family members in
15:02and and we mixed until i found someone that was right for me you know it's so important you say
15:09that
15:09because when when we were doing slay it was kind of the same thing our manufacturers was like nobody's
15:15gonna buy this because it's gonna cost too much to make it and i spent you know two years developing
15:20what we call our slay secret sauce and so at the manufacturing level we take the synthetic fiber
15:26and we strip it and we condition it and we add all these natural ingredients onto the product
15:32before we package it and our manufacturers the retail stores the mom-and-pop stores they were like
15:38no one's gonna buy braiding hair at eight dollars nobody's gonna buy that and i was like
15:43what are you saying black women are hungry for a better version of this and the data shows that
15:49that data will show up we will show up and purchase when we find the right things for ourselves yeah
15:54what we needed was a solution right and and we're talking about the difference in in two dollars from
16:00the marketplace right so i had to listen to a lot of people tell me this is never going to
16:05work
16:06but when you know you when you know you're doing something on purpose deserve it but we deserve it yes
16:13what was the best piece of feedback you guys have ever gotten from another black woman
16:19uh you black women let me just say this to all the black women out there black women are so
16:25dope
16:25and we are so wise right because if we just take a moment and sit underneath people that are older
16:32than us black women teach us everything we need the best advice i've ever gotten is diane you need to
16:38get really comfortable with being unapologetically you and being you is going to make some people
16:44uncomfortable being you is going to make some people say you're too much and you're too big and you're too
16:49loud and i'm so okay with that because i do dance to my own beat but it started not just
16:55with my
16:56mother saying it but with other black women in my life just encouraging me to don't try to fit in
17:02there's enough people in the world fitting in be okay being different when did you really come into
17:09that like what age would you say about you really came into yourself i think it was in junior high
17:13school in middle school early in middle early in middle school i was class president you know and
17:20all throughout middle school i was valedictorian i was on the debate team so i always had a big mouth
17:25and i used it right same i was never i wasn't the cool girl right i was the girl all
17:32the cool girls
17:33hated right because i was the teacher's pet i was all those things but i just knew that there was
17:38no need
17:39for me to try to fit in with the in crowd because god created me to stand out so i
17:44just got real
17:45comfortable with people not liking me or not wanting to hear me or saying she talked too much and all
17:51those things because i just felt like you just mad because i ain't talking to you period that's it and
17:58how
17:58are you for janelle it's so um for me one thing that stuck with me is my mom she told
18:05me to do for
18:07self do for self and uh i remember calling her and when i was in college telling her i didn't
18:16get this
18:17so i didn't you know get in this club or you know just very sad about a lot of letdowns
18:24and what she
18:26told me was so do it yourself go make it yourself and when i got out of college um going
18:34after job
18:35after job interviewing here and there every day and i was like oh my god i didn't get the job
18:40called my
18:40mom so do for self start your own company and i swear to god like it stuck with me and
18:48that's exactly
18:49what i did and camille rose is actually my second business i had another successful business before
18:58this um that i ended up um selling to someone in in that industry but i felt like in my
19:07life i had to
19:08always do for myself and however i wanted to live i had to get out there and create you know
19:17the life
19:17that i wanted myself and real quickly you guys let's say there's a new brand new customer they've
19:23never tried slay they never tried camille rose they're walking to target they're like let me give
19:27this a try what do you want them to get from your product before maybe they even use it and
19:32then when
19:33they use it first performance number one and feel the difference in their hair but with us with camille
19:40rose i want them to feel like they have a trusted product the product is going to say what the
19:46label
19:46says is does and um they don't have to worry about you know using something synthetic or an ingredient
19:54that's going to cause them to react so it's all about trust for me every time a woman a black
20:01woman
20:02picks up a pack of sleigh i want her to know that this is her opportunity to honor her crown
20:07because
20:08it's beautiful and it's special and it's worthy to be exalted it's worthy to have the best products that
20:15they can have and we cannot wait for the world to validate us and who we are we have to
20:21walk in
20:22knowing that we are the baddest chick on every block and sometimes it starts with a pack of sleigh
20:27period and that is a perfect way to end thank you guys so much for being here thank you both
20:33this was
20:34a beautiful conversation guys we'll be back tomorrow at 2 p.m for another target panel we hope to see
20:40you
20:40there thank you guys enjoy the rest of essence fest
Comments