On May 18, naturalistas in over 60 cities including Tokyo and the Netherlands gathered to celebrate natural hair for the International Natural Hair Meetup Day. Founded by Adeea Rogers, The Trendy Socialite, the purpose of this event is to set aside a day to gather together the Natural Hair Community to learn and embrace our hair, and each other. I was blessed to be able to co-host this year’s event with Michelle of Desired Beauty Supplies.
The event was held at Baxter’s Sports Lounge in downtown Norfolk, in their chic 
VIP Lounge. The event sold out a week before, so the room was packed with ladies ready to have fun, and be educated about natural hair. Each attendee received a swag bag filled with at least one full-sized product along with tons of sample size products from event sponsors. The event was presented by Natural Girls Rock, and other event sponsors included Lustrasilk CurlMax, EDEN BodyWorks, Karen’s Body Beautiful, Koils by Nature, SheaMoisture, Blue Magic, Isabelle’s Own, Curls, African Pride, Curls Unleashed, and the list goes on. For our Hampton Roads event, we also had NeNe’s Secret, Design Essentials, and PuraBody Naturals as sponsors. Visit http://www.inhmd.com for a complete list of sponsors and links to their websites!
The event kicked off with a Q&A session with local naturals Ashley of Curly Cubaminican, Sherry of Curly Brown Girl, Deanna of Naturally Creole, Samara of Styled Chic, Shawna of Shawna Locs & Braids, and hair stylist/hair artist Hadney Alexander. They answered questions about fashion and makeup trends, hair care and loc care. Then Wendy (Above & Beyond Salon in Hampton), Prenik (Fruit of the Spirit Salon in Virginia Beach) and the rest of the Design Essentials team took over and did an amazing education session about what products to use to achieve the desired style you want.
The night ended with several giveaways, and shopping with the vendors. The official event photos are coming soon, but to get a sneak peak of all the fun, check out the pictures I took during the event by clicking here!
Last Friday I shared pictures of designs from Sohung Designs that I stumbled on while in New York a couple weekends ago. This Friday, I wanted to share another shop I discovered. Golly NYC is a company that takes actual pieces cut from 20th Century artifacts that represent pop culture, and upcycles them for shirts and home decor. The nostalgia I felt when I saw these shirts just made me smile. And to know that they weren’t just iron-on, but actually sown on, was so dope! 
Jonna
