Kickin’ It: Essence Journey To Beautiful Dinner

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On Wednesday evening I was invited to dinner by the Essence Magazine team to celebrate their recent cover stars Erykah Badu, Ledisi and Solange Knowles.

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The event was hosted at one of my favorite restaurants in the city – The Park. One of my absolute faves for weekend brunch. It’s beautiful and the food is delicious.

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The May issue (which I raved about HERE) is by far one of my favorite Essence issues to date not only because it’s the black beauty issue, but also because it features three of my favorite soul singers and black beauties.

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I love that Essence decided to celebrate natural beauty via these three powerful women who embrace what it means to be beautiful. They’re all fearlessly proud, inspirational and comfortable in their own skin. And let’s not forget to mention – infinitely talented.

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After grabbing cocktails, I mixed and mingled with some of my absolute favorite beauty girls like epic celebrity stylist Ursula Stephens, bestie Jessica Andrews of Glamazons Blog, fly mom Felicia Walker-Benson of ThisThatBeauty, Chescaleigh, Cipriana Quann of Urban Bush Babes, Julee Wilson of Huffington Post and new Essence.com beauty editor (and longtime friend) Deena Campbell.

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Guess who else popped by to say hello? The one and only Erykah Badu. She is the definition of beauty – seriously. Not only is her skin absolutely flawless but she is also a really SWEET and HUMBLE person!

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I say that with all caps because it is very rare, in this industry, to run into women with as much success as her that are truly and genuinely sweet people. She lit up the whole room with her presence that night. She also took the time to take pictures with every last person there, even sacrificing time to eat dinner. How amaze is she?

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The night’s festivities were not only to celebrate the May cover stars but also to chat about the “journey to beautiful” – what we as women go through on our quest to feeling we have true beauty. We also celebrated Essence.com’s new and improved Hair Channel (shoutout to beauty editor Deena and blogger Cipriana for all their hard work on this!). Both cover stars in attendance – Ledisi and Erykah Badu – were asked to chat with Essence’s new Beauty Director about what their journey to beautiful has been like.

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Ledisi said something so profound in her chat. She talked about her weight loss journey and said that she did it for HER and not for anyone else. She also left us with this tidbit of advice:

“Love yourself now. Wherever you are now, love yourself.”

There’s something so powerful about those words. As a new mommy (three months post-partum) whose still on the journey to getting my confidence back, I definitely took Ledisi’s advice to heart.

demetria-lucas-christina-brownMy tablemate for the evening was the lovely Demetria Lucas of A Belle in Brooklyn. You guys might also recognize her from Bravo’s Blood Sweat & Heels reality show. So very happy for her.

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I couldn’t leave without rubbing this lady’s baby bump. Julee Wilson of Huffington Post – one of my fave people. How adorable is she? She’s having a baby boy!

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I also met two of my favorite stars from Netflix series “Orange is The New Black”Samira Wiley (who plays Poussey) and Danielle Brooks (who plays Taystee). So gorgeous in person!

Overall I had a fantastic time at dinner. I met so many amazing women and loved hearing stories from Erykah Badu and Ledisi.

Christina Brown

Lifestyle influencer and digital mompreneur Christina S. Brown is a New York native, LA resident, and the founder of LoveBrownSugar.com and BrownGirlsLove. She's an award-winning storyteller, a motivational speaker and an advocate for confident millennial black women.