by
Black Girl With Long Hair
It used to be that black women depended on magazines to select, curate and showcase black beauty. Through the pages of glossies like Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Essence we became familiar with black beauties like Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell and Liya Kebede. But with the rise of Instagram, black women from all over the world are sharing images and inspiring a new generation with their beauty and style. As we ring in 2016, we want to take a moment to celebrate these 5 black stunners. We’re sure we’ll see more of them this year!
Alicia Daniella
Although her Instagram account is private, Alicia often shares images on her popular Tumblr account. The Trinidadian and Venezuelan beauty is also the braindchild of the #iwillnotapologizeforbeingdarkskin movement.
Danielle Desiree
Danielle Desiree is a Guyanese beauty who serves face and natural hair goals. Her career as a model hasn’t stopped her from being silly and relatable on her Instagram account.
Nikki Perkins
Nikki Perkins is Australian of South Sudanese heritage. A beauty and lifestyle vlogger with a sizeable YouTube audience, she has her Instagram followers in a frenzy over her forthcoming first child!
Monti
This Houston born, LA based beauty serves up some ridiculous face and body goals on her Instagram account. We are here for all of it…
Elisa
Come throooough with the selfies! This 22-year-old Angolan beauty has a private Instagram account, but shares plenty jaw-dropping selfies on her Tumblr account which she also uses to drop knowledge about African culture, women’s rights and Black Lives Matter. Beauty and brains.
In a world that marginalizes the beauty of black women, we are here for recognizing and celebrating the stunners among us!
56 Responses
A photo of Nikki Perkins is in the dictionary next to the definition for “Nubian princess”…yes Lord!
If I woke up and looked like Elisa, I would lose everything because I’d just be staring in the mirror all day.
They are all very beautiful. But Africans come in different body types, skin colours, facial features and hair types. Not all of us are curvy and busty. It’ll be nice to see our diversity more properly represented.
“From a sister with caramel skin I want to say to my sisters with dark skin why can not you acknowledge to yourself how beautiful you are? You have a such rich melanin, you are the living representation of the real beauties!
You are the real standard beauty,and you should have right to be the queens!
You are the representation of the ancient Egyptian queens, African queens and ancient Goddess, you are the true representation of Womanhood!
Don’t let you down when someone say “you are ugly for your skin, isn’t true,because that person is jealous of you for your beautiful skin!”
Peace sisters!”
CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME VIDEO!
well i am white and do think black women are bit hotter lol dang look at you
Yes they are beautiful. That’s it! Planning for a party? Going to a wedding? Need a gift for a gag? here’s a perfect gift for you, try this Fake sonogram videos for an ice breaker. Have a treat and burst out the fun! From FakeaBaby.
They’re all beautiful, end of story.
There are so many more! My dear friend, René Daniella, @ownbyfemme is one of them for sure!
All of them are beautiful.
there are some seriously jealous people posting in the comments section for this article.
these women are beautiful no doubt but I have a problem with the fact that these days, to be considered beautiful one must have their makeup game on point or have a specific body type. What about those that don’t know how to use makeup? what are they supposed to do? what about those that just don’t want to use it? what about the black women that don’t have hips, thighs, breasts or a backside. They exist!
nobody said anything about light skin girls tho. Admire and uplift brown skin women without putting our light ones down.
tons of makeup, fake hair and obviously any women who takes their clothes off is always hot. This is actually insulting.
I can’t speak for the other girls but if you go on youtube and watch Nikki Perkins’s everyday makeup video you’ll see that she’s still beautiful without makeup.
some of these women (if not all) wear their hair natural. And some of them being models it sorta comes with the job that they may not always be heavily clothed. #justsaying
Breathtaking!!!
As an African, I highly disagree with your “typical African” statement. Not all Africans have wide noses and big lips. I would know this, because my family doesn’t look like that, and we are mostly Nigerian. So don’t put a continent filled with millions of people in one little box. It’s not right ?
OMG i know right. This rly gets on my nerves!
Yes! They all were gorgeous!
Dear lord…I thank you, for the all natural beauty bestowed upon mine eyes.
I am more intrigued by an artistic or quiet beauty, not so much the over-sexualized, heteronormative feminine beauty. I do love Nikki because she has a very sweet, charming *personality*. That, to me, compliments her natural physical appearance and makes her truly beautiful. I also thought Nikki had a tasteful sense of fashion and beauty.
YES they are ALL bad. and at this point, how our own people classify light skin, eyes and “good hair” as beauty. check out these dark skin beauties with BEAUTIFUL hair popping. and to answer what makes these ladies “drop dead gorgeous”? dark skin and big hair…YES YES!!! and facial features and bodies on point! I like this article and they SLAY. PROOF not only light skin, light eyes are beautiful.
they all look similar to me brown skin and curvy which in my case is the opposite of me. Im light skin and straight. :/
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder….What makes these ladies “drop dead gorgeous”? Dark skin and big hair!
Um..their bone structure.
I’d love to see more diversity in a list like this, so that we don’t end up further marginalizing black beauty. Transwomen, fat women, differently abled women etc
Thank you for saying this. All these women are beautiful but it just reinforces an eurocentric ideal of black beauty. thin bodied, able bodied, cis, with “acceptable” features. this list (and even the hair icons) can definitely use a revamp when it comes to diversity.
I see high cheekbones and full lips..
Cis? Lol….
r u kidding me? people are completely cray nowadays.
Transwomen?…oxymoron?
you’re trolling right? baiting aren’t you?
Godd****, Godd******, Godd**********…..that is all.
gorgeous…all of them
Beautiful women, makes me love my dark skin even more. I could be added on to this list but I hate posting pics of me online.
Wow! Stunning doesn’t even begin to cover it.
They all except one have very similar facial features (heartshaped with narrow noses surrounded by lots of hair) and body types (big breasts on skinny/petite frames). Coincidence or purposeful?
it’s sad when you can’t escape white supremacism on a site for black women. Yes they are pretty. But it’s the same type of pretty over and over. And that’s not the typical African pretty. Oh well, just another day.
You are kidding right? Just because a dark skin black are labeled as “drop dead gorgeous”a black hair website doesn’t mean EVERY black woman has to agree! So if I font agree I have been brain wash by Thebes “man”….*GTFOOH
“And that’s not the typical African pretty.”–There is no “typical” African pretty except for the one we’ve been conditioned to believe. There are two models here from Africa, so how are they not part of the typical African pretty? And my best friend is from the Congos and she looks very similar to the model Danielle.
Africa is whole continent of varied looks even among the “pure” blooded Africans. I think we need to stop looking at Africans through the lens of white supremacy which has brainwashed many of us to view Africans as only being able to fit one aesthetic when that is the furthest thing from the truth.
Y’all are way too hard to satisfy. Half of y’all are mad because these girls don’t look like YOU. Acknowledge other kinds of beauty for once. The same way skinny noses shouldn’t be heralded as what is beautiful, this site didn’t have to showcase a bunch of large noses to appease y’all. Black women come in different shades, looks, etc. The “African pretty” is not the only type of pretty.
“That’s not the typical African pretty”
May I ask what is “typical African”? Please don’t pigeon-hole an entire continent rich in diversity. We do not all have the same appearance, so there are no “typical” features. Nikki Perkins’s parents are both South Sudanese making her fully African. If you want more representation of women with curvier figures, broader noses or bigger lips, etc. then choose to specify that. Don’t make comments that promotes the generalization of over 1 billion people
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As an African, I highly disagree with your “typical African” statement. Not all Africans have wide noses and big lips. I would know this, because my family doesn’t look like that, and we are mostly Nigerian. So don’t put a continent filled with millions of people in one little box. It’s not right ?
African women come in all varieties. Ignore that troll.
I think the point of this post is: Yes, these ladies are gorgeous!!! However, the diversity of beauty is lacking. African people/black people are so diverse. Light/dark skin tone, very kinky/loose-curly hair, narrow/broader nose, thin/plus size. This list portrays this ‘modern/western’ definition of beauty: the thin, model-like/shape, hair and makeup, etc. And yes, a more narrow nose is preferred. What about the non-polished beauty? The non-model women? The non-Western definition of what beauty is deemed to be today that is overlooked? (and I think its been overlooked in this article as well). We are part of a global community, but we have several definitions of beauty across black/African culture and they should be embraced. Rightly said,we’re not only thick lips and broad noses, but we’re equally not all ‘typical’ model looking. Thnx
I think these women are very beautiful, but I think everyone is beautiful. In fact, I don’t like the concept of beauty as being exclusive to anyone. I think what some posters are trying to articulate is that the “dark skinned beauty” being showcased above is consistent with what we’ve been told a “beautiful dark skinned woman” should look like: narrow nose, high cheek bones, pouty lips, straight or loosely curled hair etc. So perhaps posters were expecting that this list would push the envelope a bit more, or perhaps they are simply seeking to point out that colorism is only one schism through which women of color are marginalized. I’m a dark skinned Nigerian woman with the broad facial features that society tends not to value. (I agree, by the way, that there is no one “African,” or even “Nigerian,” set of facial features, as there are loads of Nigerian and other African women who look more like the women featured above than they look like me). To the extent that I see darker skinned women celebrated in traditional media, they do tend to look like the women above. Thankfully, I seek out imagery that showcases a more inclusive notion of beauty. One can easily feel “erased” or invisible if they look to the media, (and lists like this) to confirm their beauty or to reflect a progressive notion of what is beautiful. It’s unlikely that I will ever fit into society’s box of what’s beautiful, but the more I evolve, and heal from society’s BS, the less I care for the validation.
Well said!!
I couldn’t agree more
These ladies are gorgeous but I had to unfollow a lot of supposed black beauty Celebration blogs/tumblrs because they would ONLY post black women who had similar features to the Women above.
What is “typical African”? You realize Africa is a continent with people who look very different depending on the region. There are Africans with wide noses and large groups with narrow noses, some with long and thin body types and others with thick types, etc, etc. This is like some crazy self-stereotyping going on.
You are absolutely right, I wonder how many have breast implants?!
ppl are so caught up in the fakeness of these reality “celebrities” that those natural features on regular women are automatically assumed to be fake. their breasts look very real. Victoria secrets also sells “enhancement” bras to give the appearance of fuller breasts for us smaller breasted women. regardless, can’t we just celebrate their beauty? of course there are other sized women out there. how about we just comment links of other ppl we would like to see showcased instead of bashing and dissecting the ones bglh has chosen #positivity2016
None of them that I can tell, as another naturally large breasted woman. (I would need more pics of the first to be sure, though)
You know there *are* women who just naturally have large breasts or a big ass or full lips or whatever is the latest absurd body part obession (always female, of course). It’s extremely annoying, in this plastic age, to have people assume you must have had something “done” to yourself if you have perfectly normal female traits like a big bust. Anyway, I thought me and my big boobs were *out* and it’s all about the booty now, better to get butt implants with that money, no?
Funny this morning I saw a set of pics on Twitter of Nikki Perking and how she was slaying her pregnancy! I only know her and Danielle
omg @ Monti’s body…so perfect