How Sexyy Red Inspired My Redhead Era

I will confess, my dark skin tone made me box myself in for years when it came to how far I’d let myself go in terms of experimenting with hair color. As assured as I am in my skin tone today, that wasn’t always the case. Pop culture comments from rappers like ASAP Rocky, who made a statement in 2013 saying only fair-skinned women can rock red lipstick or even Real Housewives Of Atlanta star Peter Thomas, who said Black women shouldn’t wear blonde hair, sunk deep into my subconscious unbeknownst to me, subtly influencing my beauty choices throughout my teens and twenties.

But I started to break out of my hair color shell two years ago. Perhaps I can thank weekly therapy, or even just that mid-thirties confidence boost that comes with a life fully lived, either way, I dove head first into a rainbow pond of tresses. I tried blonde for the first time, and even some brown curls with sandstone highlights, but of all the colorways, red hair has been my favorite play yet.

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Now, I will say for years my mom encouraged me to try out a wine tone, somewhere in the 99J to the burgundy 350 family. But I was scared to do it, until I was inspired to leap by a rising rap star from the midwest with a raunchy mouth, red tresses, and square glasses.

Sexyy Red was one of my biggest modern-day influences for the look. I am a forever fan of the rap girls, and being from the Midwest myself, I have regional pride for what Sexxy has done with her career (IMHO: The Midwest rap scene hasn’t had a hit-maker like this since Nelly/St. Lunatics).

Beyond the fair critique, some may have about Sexxy Red’s lyrics or politics, I feel free to listen to and dance to her music. It gives the little, naughty, Black girl inside of me whose creative expression was suppressed by Catholic school conservatism, an opportunity to let her grown tongue hang loose. I’ve been secretly rapping lyrics in my bedroom since sippy-cups, and I always feel liberated by the slick-talking, no-holds-barred bars of rambunctiously, raw, rap lyrics. Sexxy Redd’s work is no different.

Her look is just the icing on the cake for me. Something about those nerdy frames and red hair visibly represents the contradictions I inwardly hold for myself. As a health editor with Southern roots, I exist somewhere in the intersection between science nerd and Megan The Stallion hot girl. No, the two don’t make obvious sense, but Sexxy’s look made the two seemingly disparate identities find home together in me. So In the Fall of 2023, I soft-launched Cherry Rose Redd on Instagram.

I noticed with my red hair, I was a little more comfortable making bold decisions. When you walk into the world with a hair made of fire, it’s hard not to summon up your own inner Phoenix. As a red, I was ushered into a new reality where I didn’t try to hide or blend into the crowd. I was loudly different, and it felt good to own that fully without embarrassment or instinctive shrinking for the first time.

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