Seduced by Mikki Taylor, Essence’s beauty editor

It’s an elegant Mikki Taylor who sits down with All Woman early Wednesday morning. The Pegasus café staff are busy, pouring copious cups of coffee all in the quest to wake up members of the corporate community. She’s every bit the woman we have gotten to know intimately through the beauty pages of Essence magazine over the years. For 23 years, Taylor has reigned as the fashion and beauty authority for women of colour around the world.

Taylor is already quite alert, having just finished an interview on the radio talk show, The Breakfast Club. She is dressed in a two-piece black trouser suit which features the latest editor-cut trousers. The suit is further softened by the utterly feminine white ruffled sleeveless blouse worn underneath. We learn later in the interview that white (clean and simple) is her favourite colour. One of her long fingers reveals a single square sapphire ring. As she places her packed Louis Vuitton bag to her side, we commence our conversation.

She is only in Jamaica for 24 hours on a working visit – to participate in CVM Television’s Our Voices programme (which airs this evening) and plug her first book, Self- Seduction: Your Ultimate Path to Inner and Outer Beauty.

Described as the ultimate path to inner and outer beauty, Taylor’s preferred chapter is nine: The Art of Picture Perfect Beauty. No surprise, really, since this chapter speaks to her personal beauty journey. It’s a book which took two years to complete, Taylor says, and is written in an easy conversation format that spans nine chapters.

“I want readers to treat it (the book) as they would a conversation amongst each other. “We stop and then come back to the topic,” she said.

This seems to be a recurring theme as each chapter in “Self-Seduction” can also be seen as an appeal to women to treat life as a journey and not as a destination…to slow down. Taylor says that this is no superficial treatment of beauty.

“Essence began in 1970 because there were no other magazines that focused on empowering black women. This is my first book and it is written because a similar one just did not exist,” she explained. “I wasn’t interested in the superficial. This book seeks to fill a gap, a void, and to also give us a not-so-subtle hint as to how to be successful entrepreneurs — create a product, that does not exist for the market.”

In Self-Seduction, Taylor explores beauty at the spiritual level and wants women to seek beauty from within before taking out the sponge to apply the foundation. When asked how important it is to for today’s woman to self-seduce, her response was immediate and concise.

“It’s essential – we give emotionally, physically, and mentally all the time. It’s time for us (women) to regard ourselves as more than worthy. This book represents a conversation (over the years) between other women, celebrities as well as non-celebrities and health practitioners. As women we have to learn to find time for ourselves,” she said. “For me, my quiet time is in the mornings. As I meditate and reflect I ask God to help me to show up ready for his blessings and for the ability to empower and inform others.”

The ability to empower and inform is something Taylor thrives on. While growing up in Newark, New Jersey, she took those traits from her mother, Modina Davis — a stylist for jazz great, Sarah Vaughn and whose circle included Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Growing up in such a formidable circle, it was hard not to have a sense of self and black pride.

“My goal is to portray black women in all their glory and motivate them to define beauty for themselves,” she said.

No surprise then, that during our conversation she spoke openly about issues affecting blacks, individually and generally, such as the bleaching of the skin to achieve a lighter hue and domestic violence.

“For years we have been bombarded with images of what society deems acceptable,” she said of skin bleaching. “The very notion of a standard of beauty is an insult to the Creator, who made us all shapes and sizes. I’m trying (through Essence and Self -Seduction) to change all of that.”

On the subject of domestic violence she commented that no male wants to be categorised as a beater of women. “We need to live out the truth of who we are as a people. We are dignified, proud people. It is this side of our self that we need to get in touch with. Where did that notion come from and why am I living by it is the question that must be asked and answered.”

In chapter 6 of Self-Seduction, Taylor focuses on handling yourself with care. It is perhaps the chapter that helps one to evaluate one’s life. In chapter six, she stresses to need to take time out, something she found out after a non-stop schedule contributed to a bad fall which resulted in her having to use a pair of crutches. “I realised that the show had to stop, I recognised that I had no stand-in,” she said.

Taylor told All Woman that another turning point in her life happened when she embraced spirituality. “I attended a retreat for Christians in Connecticut. I learnt then and am still learning that when you are fully empowered you allow God to ensure you of your worth.”

The fashion and beauty editor also spoke briefly on aging.

“Your chronological age has nothing to do with the truth of who you are,” she says. “It is how you feel mentally and physically, day to day, that is the deciding factor in your life’s journey.”

As our interview draws to a close (they’re ready for her in the studio) it is difficult not to want to keep asking questions, to squeeze as much as possible out of this woman on a spiritual journey. A woman proud to share with the world the fact that her children are all grown and that she is a grandmother. A woman who has been married to husband Philip for 20 years and who admits to being a real trooper for other women. She implores those who aspire to be the next great black ‘influencer’ of beauty to “show up ready with focused minds and knowledge to contribute something that does not already exist. I would not wish anyone to want to be the next Mikki Taylor but rather themselves.”

Self-Seduction is Taylor’s first book but she assures All Woman that it won’t be her last.

For us and readers of All Woman she leaves three valuable points:

(1) Take time for self. This is essential to total well-being, and is critical in your journey, and what you contribute to the world.

(2) We need to define the bodies we possess. Master our health, break the pattern of illnesses that flows from one generation to the next. Women must control the food eaten by the family. Food is fuel and not just a question of one’s taste-buds. Food contributes to the health of the family. The type of food eaten by the family influences future medical bills.

(3) Be determined to stay on course. For too many of us life becomes a matter of commencing a journey but stopping before its conclusion. Life becomes a race instead of a journey. As a result we miss the process along the way. Slow down and enjoy life — every step of the way.

Enjoy where we are.