My name is Blessing, and I’ve been interested in skincare ever since I was 11, when I started getting acne. I  had set my self a goal to clear up my skin, and through that my interest in that field has grown. As for hair, I only really started getting into it when I went natural at 13. Before then my hair was a crispy blow-dried mess! It took time but now I can happily say that my skin and hair is doing pretty well. On top of that I have also got scarring due to popping my pimples, a big mistake that I eventually learnt my lesson from too late.

I decided to make a skin and hair care account on Instagram in order to help people and give them the advice, apart from drinking water, that I wish I had when I started taking care of my hair and skin. The account originally started off as @Hair&Skin_BV , since it was a joint account with my sister, Vanessa, who also had an interest in these categories. Her interest slowly faded away, and she decided to leave the account, making it my own, @Beautywithblessing . But I too had to take a break from it in order to do my GCSE’s, when I was done I came back to the account. 

Ever since the break i’ve been posting advice regularly, and not only is it helping people out, it’s also teaching me new hacks too!

As you (hopefully) already know, my name is Blessing and I love all things beauty and self care. But theres more to me than that.

I was born in Ghana, but i don’t remember much of living there since i moved to North England at age 3. I  enjoyed my Yorkshire home, so did my Mum, Dad, and little brother and sister. Friends were fun, school was alright. But one thing i’ve now noticed that i didn’t before was how I wasn’t the proudest of my roots. For example, hair texture. Many people at the time had caucasian/ silky hair, and my thick 4b hair didn’t exactly look like that. I’d constantly relax and blow dry my hair so that it would suit everyone else’s, which would damage it. Another thing was the strictness of parents. Anyone with strict African parents will know the struggle of not being allowed out as much. So whilst my friends would go out every weekend I’d be stuck inside, wondering why African parents are so strict.

Anyways, I didn’t realise how “white washed” I was becoming, but apparently my mother did. She wanted to move to the capital, London, where theres a bit more diversity. Obviously being in a school where there were only around 4 black kids was slowly changing me, and my mum could tell. So, when I was in year 7 we moved. Me and my dad were very hesitant, my dad because he doesn’t like big changes and me because i enjoyed my school and life in Yorkshire. Even though nobody was exactly up for the idea my mum put her foot down, and headed to live in London by herself for a couple months, knowing that eventually we’d have to go to her. We did, and despite me being very against the idea at the beginning, i’m very glad she did. I’ve made loads of pretty great friends, have become a lot prouder of my roots and am loving the city life.