Black women redefine beauty beyond breast cancer

Are Fake Lashes Harmful For Black Women?

By India Espy-Jones ·Updated May 23, 2025 From wispy and voluminous, to natural and doll eyed, eyelash extensions represent the lengths Black women go to enhance their existing beauty. Long, curled lashes have long been a symbol of Black identity. Think: Josephine Baker who wore extra-straight lashes in the ’30s. Later, Diana Ross was known to clump her lashes in the ’70s, and, more recently, Pat McGrath glued oversized fabric lashes on Black mo…

Black women redefine beauty beyond breast cancer

Venita Graves (Center) supports breast cancers survivors like Angela Price-Hardeman (Left) and Kimberly Williams through her Beauty Beyond Breast Cancer organization (Right) . Credit: Jimmie AggisonWhen Venita Graves launched her nonprofit Beauty Beyond Breast Cancer in 2010, she wasn’t chasing accolades or entrepreneurship. She was answering a calling. A hairstylist and cancer survivor herself, Graves recognized a painful void for women, especi…

Black Women Redefine Beauty Beyond Breast Cancer

By Laura Onyeneho When Venita Graves launched her nonprofit Beauty Beyond Breast Cancer in 2010, she wasn’t chasing accolades or entrepreneurship. She was answering a calling.  A hairstylist and cancer survivor herself, Graves recognized a painful void for women, especially Black women, undergoing treatment.  “When a woman loses her hair, her eyebrows, her lashes, there’s a certain sadness that comes with that,” she says. “And I knew we needed a…