Dear Gossips,   

Beyoncé, the Queen of Culture, decided yesterday that break time is over. When she is active, it often happens in February, during Black History Month. It’s been long rumoured that she would be launching her own hair care line and the Queen of Culture confirmed yesterday that that is indeed the plan. 

 

CÉCRED is coming. 

It’s impossible to overstate the level of anticipation – because as we know, Beyoncé does not play when it comes to hair, and she knows hair. Miss Tina ran a hair salon for many years and this is where Beyoncé spent much of her childhood, which is why she is sharing home video footage of the salon from back in the day in the teaser. 

 

As Beyoncé said in Harper’s Bazaar back in 2001

“There is power in community, and I saw that growing up the daughter of a salon owner. My first introduction to beautiful women was curvy, Texas-bred, bean-and-cornbread-fed goddesses. I was exposed to so many entrepreneurial women that I admired. Doctors, business owners, artists, teachers, mothers—they all came through my mom’s salon. I saw firsthand how a salon can be a sanctuary for women. I vividly remember one client who was an opera singer. She was this regal Black woman who had traveled all around the world and would tell these incredible stories. I’d love to hear about her travels and decided one day I would travel around the world too.

 

I watched my mother nurture and heal those women in her salon, not just by making them look and feel beautiful but by talking with them, listening to them, and connecting with them. I’ve seen how much Black women’s emotions are attached to our hair and beauty. The beauty industry does not always understand these emotions and what we need. I want to build a community where women of all races can communicate and share some of those secrets, so we can continue to support and take care of each other.”

Beyoncé rarely captions her social media posts, but she gave us some words on the feed yesterday:

“Hair is sacred”, and that’s not only the homonym of the brand name but also, perhaps, the motto of the brand itself; this is gospel, for so many people. Beyoncé’s hair experience is rooted in her Blackness, and at the same time, this is yet another example of the storytelling principle that James Joyce articulated so sparingly: “In the particular is contained the universal”. What is specific is universal. Beyoncé’s hair story is centered in Blackness but not limited to it, not unlike how the key to the success of Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is that it came onto the market with shades for people with skin tones that were underserved by the beauty industry and endeavored to be as inclusive as possible, offering one of the widest shade ranges that the market had ever seen. 

 

In addition to the CÉCRED announcement though, there may be more Beyoncé news… unless, of course, we’re clowning ourselves. It’s the Super Bowl this weekend, which means a lot of new commercials, and Verizon yesterday posted this: 

 

This rang the bell of every member of the BeyHive because:

-the first words out of Tony Hale’s mouth are “HOLD UP”. 

-the lemons, obvs

-the one second clip at the end is from “MY HOUSE”, the song Beyoncé released this past December

-Beyoncé worked with Verizon on the Renaissance World Tour

-earlier this week Verizon announced a partnership with J Balvin, the Beyoncé association there is “Mi Gente” 

Word on the street is that Verizon has paid $7 million for a 30 second spot and the Las Vegas Sphere will be involved. People are now running away with speculation and it’ll probably end up being nothing but the Queen collecting another paycheque but still, we’ll take any Beyoncé on Sunday, whether it’s two seconds of work or, you know, whatever it is that she’s been secretly planning. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey