Beautiful Embrace: Inside the LA Home of Model and Activist Nikia Phoenix
Photographs by Genevieve Garruppo. Originally published in AphroChic magazine Issue 2, Winter 2020.
Nikia Phoenix loves the skin she’s in, and she wants you to love yours just as much. Once the awkward girl with freckles, the model now known for her gorgeous skin knows that the road to feeling at home with yourself is neither short nor straight. Yet she’d be the first to suggest that it’s the one best travelled, and that the best thing about traveling it is that there’s no need to do it alone. That was the driving sentiment behind Black Girl Beautiful, the 23andMe star’s self-and-communal love brand aimed at Black women everywhere and of all ages.
The writer, model and content creator’s gorgeous Los Angeles apartment is the perfect balance of inspirational style and restorative atmosphere to support every aspect of her multi-hyphenate creative life. Balance is important in a life that juggles modeling, brand events, podcasting and the constant travel needed to sustain all three. Most of us travel to get away from everyday life, but when everyday life is lived on the road, home is the special event, the escape, and it needs to feel that way.
Sitting on a quiet residential street in LA’s Korean Town, the building appears like a dream of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Built in the 1920s, its sunny, yellow concrete exterior is accented by the bright crimson blooms of wild bougainvillea vines. The unruly plants climb the outside of the building from the lawn to the second floor where they frame Nikia’s front window. The flowers end just under the terracotta tiled roof that completes the home’s classic L.A. look.
Originally from South Carolina, growing up as the girl with a constellation of freckles wasn’t always easy for Nikia. Kids teased her for being different, something that stuck with her even as her freckles made her stand out in the most exceptional ways in campaigns for Coca-Cola, Target, or as the mysterious beauty in Usher’s “Good Kisser” video. Before that, her childhood fantasies of modeling were set aside in favor of a more traditional path that led through college to a career in broadcast news. But then an unexpected encounter signaled a chance to be what she’d always wanted to be. “A big opportunity presented itself out of thin air years after I’d walked away from my dreams of being a model,” she recalls. “I knew it was fate.”
For Nikia, experiences with the racism and misogyny, along with the uniquely perception-bending concept of beauty that models both promote and are subject to led to a need to speak up. Though she was no longer a journalist, the experience had prepared her when the opportunity arose to marry her sense of advocacy with the platform provided by being a popular model. The initial result was Model Liberation, a blog aimed at creating conversation and community for those, like Nikia, working to find their way in the industry. That effort quickly expanded from an industry focus to include all Black women, transforming into the multi-tiered brand experience, Black Girl Beautiful.
“Black Girl Beautiful came about because of both inspirational and economic reasons,” Nikia relates. “I read all these consumer reports that validated what I already knew - African American women far outspend women of other ethnicities on beauty products. I wondered how we could drop so much money and not have more beauty brands cater to us? Then the self-love aspect came in. Why do we really spend so much? Are we trying to fix something about ourselves?”
Ultimately Nikia decided that the only thing in need of fixing was anything that denied Black women the opportunity to see themselves as beautiful or convinced them that to be beautiful meant covering themselves in the artificial. Most of all, she rejects the notion that there is only one way to be a Black woman. “We have to celebrate our individuality and differences while also recognizing our oneness. We are here for the everyday Black girl, the round-the-way girl, the awkward Black girl, the alternative Black girl, and more. African American women are not monolithic, one dimensional characters. We’re real people. The more we acknowledge that while still shining our light, the better we will be.”
For the beauty advocate home is an important space. “Home is a sacred place carved out of love and tranquility away from the hustle and bustle of the world,” she reflects. From the very first glance, her own home is a well-crafted retreat. From the bright pops of pink in the furniture and art to the curved arches that define the passages from room to room, each room greets you with a soft enveloping embrace of color and texture.
“They are gorgeous,” she muses about her living room chairs. “They have this soft blush tone and the design hugs your body while still maintaining an elegant structure.” They’re the perfect balance to the gray sofa that completes the seating ensemble in her living room, yet in the light of a setting sun they pair with the art to cast the whole room in a light pink hue. Nikia admits that it’s all by design. “I like my home to be full of light and comfort. There’s a softness to my apartment that makes it inviting,” she says.
On the other side of her favorite archway, the living room gives way to the dining room and her personal office. Like the living room, the space shows Nikia’s facility with blending influences, mixing mid-century, modern and global influences seamlessly. “I love a combination of clean mid-century Scandinavian with more intricate pieces from India and Africa,” she reflects. “Much of the furniture in the space is Nordic in style and function but also extremely comfortable. I have pieces that are simple enough that you can enjoy them as-is or funk them up with accents of stripes, mudcloth, or bold color.”
Throughout the home, Nikia is intentional in her use of art. Art punctuates the space with visual reminders affirming beauty, self-care and positive thinking. Perhaps her most creative space is the moodboard that occupies the wall just above the computer in her office. A constantly-changing cloud of images and notes, pages clipped from magazines or words of affirmation, this space is the nerve center of her creativity and the inspiration for her collection. “I appreciate that every inch of my home looks like a vision board complete with inspirational images and words,” she says. “I love the artwork in my home from the black cat canvas to the ‘self love’ art. It’s a mix of abstract with fun and a pop of color.”
Like her living room, Nikia’s bedroom is awash in California sunlight delivered through generously-sized windows. She is quick to admit that it was a major selling point for the space, saying, “I like my home to be full of light and comfort. Lots of windows create the sanctuary I need.” But where the living room sun lights on colorful furnishings, collections of art and architectural flourishes, in the bedroom it finds a minimalist space built for serenity. Neutral tones on the walls and bedding together with a lack of extraneous furniture create a true oasis, a space away from the rest of the world. As Nikia puts it, “It is where I start my day, clear my head, and snuggle up to sleep.” It’s also a space that her followers are familiar with, as she regularly shares morning affirmations right from the comfort of her bed.
Nikia’s been sharing even more in season three of The Nikia Phoenix Podcast. In it, she explores firsthand a question she often poses, “How can we expect for others to love us if we don’t love ourselves completely and unconditionally?” Her stream-of-consciousness commentary is unflinchingly honest - equal parts meditation and confessional. “I want us to have more open and honest conversations about the state of Black womanhood,” she professes. “I want Black women to know that we are loved and valued and all that starts from within ourselves. We have so much power, and I want to help us tap into all of it and really thrive. When we’ve achieved that, then I will know Black Girl Beautiful has served its purpose.”
Nikia is an unabashed advocate of natural beauty, and supports every Black woman in finding what is beautiful not only in themselves, but in each other. Her love of Black women is evident on the walls of her home, and shines brightly throughout her work. Earlier this year, her brand completed one of its proudest moments, the unveiling of the “Hey Brown Girl, You’re Beautiful!” mural in downtown Atlanta. Created in collaboration with muralist Faatimah Stevens as well as musician, Mary Akpa and photographer, Nikk Rich, the project encapsulates at once, everything that Nikia wants to offer to Black women: an affirmation of their worthiness and the reassurance that they are seen.
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