This Sunday, The Black Beauty Club will close Juneteenth weekend with their first-ever block party, Beauty on the Block, in the historic capital of Black culture: 125th street in Harlem. “I grew up uptown in the Bronx, so bringing this to Harlem feels personal,” The Black Beauty Club founder Tomi Talabi tells ESSENCE. “The work of [the club] is about building infrastructure, but it’s also about honoring where culture actually lives.”
From Black Dandyism and the Harlem Renaissance to the stomping ground for Black nationalism, Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Movement, Black liberation has been woven into the historic fabric of the block party’s symbolic home. And, just like Harlem, their first-ever block party has been years in the making.
“This has been months of planning, but it really builds on years of work,” Talabi says. When planning the party, she thought about the full experience: How people enter, how brands sell, how the music feels, how the space flows, how people discover, how founders feel supported, and how the day reflects the standard that Black beauty deserves.
An open-air celebration, “Beauty on the Block is The Black Beauty Club’s way of bringing beauty out of closed industry rooms and into the community,” she says. Having hosted over 100 global events and cultural experiences, Talabi’s work is rooted in building even more community within our beauty’s culture.
“Black beauty consistently shapes the future of beauty, and we wanted to highlight the brands, founders, creatives, and communities doing that work in real time,” she says. From Dosso Beauty and Good Weather Skin to Harlem Perfume Co. and KOBA Skincare, over 20 founders will vendor the event. At the same time, you can get your hair braided at JolieDen Braiding Pop-up, nails done at the Cash App Nail Shop, or simply just dance and eat with your community.
In celebration of who we are, the party is “honoring the past by creating space for Black America, Black founders, Black consumers, Black creativity, and Black commerce to be seen and valued in the present,” she says. “Our hair, our skin, our rituals, our style, our businesses, our gathering spaces—all of that is part of history.”
Celebrating Black ownership, beauty, and community, she partnered with Cash App and Square, which she says are sponsors who understand activating in Black communities is not a seasonal gesture but an investment in a community with cultural power, consumer power, and real economic influence.
“What I really want people to walk away with is the expansiveness of Black beauty,” she says. But, don’t just support Black businesses to celebrate Juneteenth. “Buy from these brands because the products are good, because the founders are brilliant, because the ideas are strong, and because Black beauty has always been ahead of the market,” Talabi says. “That is what The Black Beauty Club is about: building the infrastructure that ensures all Black beauty is not just celebrated in moments, but embedded in the future of culture.”
RSVP to The Black Beauty Club’s Beauty on the Block party here.
