My Black Is Beautiful (MBIB), an African-American community-building platform created by Procter & Gamble (P&G), celebrates 10 successful years of initiating and sustaining a broad dialogue around black beauty at Essence Festival in New Orleans. As the Official Sponsor of the Beauty and Style Expo within Essence Festival, MBIB will galvanize thousands of African-American women and encourage them to continue to fuel conversations around beauty and pride. During the weekend leading into the 4th of July, MBIB will offer festival-goers with interactive, educational and engaging experiences that inspire them to be #BeautyEmpowered, while connecting them with P&G products with benefits for their hair and skin.

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Join My Black is Beautiful, Official Sponsor of the Beauty & Style Expo at Essence Festival in New O ...

Join My Black is Beautiful, Official Sponsor of the Beauty & Style Expo at Essence Festival in New Orleans (Graphic: Business Wire)

“With the power of more than 2.5 million women behind us, we’re celebrating a decade of inspiring initiatives that have challenged society’s standard of beauty, while encouraging generations of black women to embrace their best and beautiful selves,” said Grace Janes, Brand Manager, My Black Is Beautiful. “We’re honored to continue our partnership with Essence Festival where we will continue to motivate thousands of extraordinary women not just to join the community, but to truly take part in the dialogue that positively affects their confidence and perceptions of self-image.”

During the July 4th weekend, MBIB will pamper visitors in the booth with skin consultations and hair styling brought to you by brand partners Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Aussie and Clairol Professional. MBIB prides itself on having the largest online community of black women, and in efforts to keep these women engaged throughout the weekend, the MBIB team will maintain a social news station in the booth to bring the “best of” MBIB and Essence Festival moments to the community. Festival attendees are encouraged to stop by the booth to capture memorable moments that can be shared on social media in an interactive photo booth, to further digital engagement. My Black is Beautiful will also surprise and delight festival-goers with celebrity guests, social media surprise gifting, influencer interviews, free My Black Is Beautiful T-shirts and swag bags with products and coupons – on a first come-first serve basis.

In addition to the booth experience, MBIB will host two panel discussions during the weekend on Essence’s Beauty & Style Expo stage within the convention center, with influential women in the industry such as: Pam Edwards Christiani, Beauty Director of Essence; Nykia Spradley, Beauty Editor of Essence; Christen Rochon, Founder of the Divas & Dorks blog; and popular YouTube vloggers, The Glam Twinz. Conversations during the Beauty & Style Expo will revolve around healthy hair and skin care for black women, topics in relation to discovering your #hairtruth and #Ageless beauty – two campaigns My Black is Beautiful has supported this year.

The #hairtruth campaign comes to life on MBIB’s YouTube channel with five webisodes featuring celebrity natural hair stylist, Felicia Leatherwood and two African American Procter & Gamble beauty scientists, who educate and share tips on how to best maintain natural or relaxed hair. The #Ageless campaign supported by Olay is an ongoing initiative to guide women in their journey to attaining healthy and youthful looking skin. Both campaigns support, celebrate and encourage black women’s individual and collective definition of beauty, while giving them the resources needed to be #BeautyEmpowered.

Visit the My Black is Beautiful booth to take part in all of the action at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, 900 Convention Center Blvd; Hall E – booth #2000.

About My Black is Beautiful

My Black is Beautiful is a community-building program consisting of more than 2.5 million members, created to help positively change the conversation around Black beauty by addressing the societal and cultural stigmas associated with self-image. Formed at P&G in 2006 by a group of visionary women, MBIB was designed to spark a broader dialogue about Black beauty. Their mission was to encourage Black women everywhere to act as catalysts in their communities to redefine beauty standards. Visit MBIB.com to learn more.

About Procter & Gamble

P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands.