Blog: 83toinfinity.com
Niche: Hair, Beauty & Lifestyle
Founder: Bridget Quammie
Twitter: @BeeSince83
In a time where communities are fighting to just be themselves, and accept people for who they are, Bridget “Bee†Quammie, founder of 83 To Infinity, is becoming Toronto’s advocate for cultural acceptance, natural hair and all.
While thousands of Websites offer tips on the best natural hair products and how to embrace your natural hair, many of them only focus on products and brands offered in the U.S. So, this Afro-Canadian locks lover has taken it upon herself to seek out the best hair supplies available in North America’s upper region, and place all the information in space she likes to call “fun time.†But as readers flock to her interactive living room for natural hair guidance, Bee also finds herself using her personal relationships as a way to relate to readers and help them navigate their way through love.
As BlackEnterprise.com continues its Black Blogger Month celebration, we recognize Bee the Blogger for pushing the envelope in the hair care industry and giving her fellow Canadians a way to keep the curls flowing.
’83 to Infinity is…
My baby. It was my own personal stress reliever that just came to grow into much more, and it speaks to the fact that writing has always been something that’s been a love of mine. [Writing] was something that I kind of kept to myself, but with ‘83 To Infinity, I decided to be more public with my writing.
People come to my blog for…
The natural hair section. I’m in Toronto, and one of the things I’ve found and heard from a lot of people is that we always–especially the natural hair community–read a lot of blogs that are based in the U.S. But the problem is that those blogs mention different product lines or stylists or events [that] we don’t have access to up here. A lot of Canadian women, and men, are drawn to the natural hair side because I make an effort to highlight Canadian people and local people so that we know what products and brands and stylists and events we have going on up here.
I’ve learned people are scared of natural hair because…
They feel that it’s going to block them from professional opportunities or it’s going to make them less attractive to the opposite sex, whomever they’re attracted to. [It’s one] of the biggest misconceptions.
When my readers aren’t looking for hair tips…
People love my posts about my relationships. They’ll come to see what’s going on. Those [posts] tend to be pretty popular, and my husband worries a little bit but I always have to tell him that it’s okay.
I started ’83 To Infinity…
In August of 2011. I had gotten married in August and I had started a new job a few months before, and it was just a really crazy, stressful time. I knew I needed an outlet. I had had blogs since about 2005, but I was never consistent with them. So I said to myself, ‘I gotta start this blog. This is gonna be a good thing. It’s gonna be something for me to come home to when I’m stressed out from work.’ [I thought], ‘I’m gonna keep up with it just for my own
mental needs.’ I started the blog talking about things I’m passionate about like natural hair care, health and wellness, relationships–especially since I had just gotten married, I thought that would be a little interesting piece to write about–and just art and culture. Really it was just something I needed to do for myself, and then I just decided that I’d share it with everybody else.The hardest part about staying consistent is…
The text side of it. The past blogs I had were on Blogger, and this one, I started on WordPress. As I learned more, I got more into it and ways I wanted it to look and ways I wanted the blog to function, and because I didn’t really get into all that in my previous blogs I had to learn about managing the tech side. I’m not a techy person. The other thing is…I love to be very transparent in my writing and be very honest, but you don’t want to put all your business out there, especially when I’m writing about relationship things. I wanna share enough so that people know what I’m saying, but I don’t wanna share too much too either a) get me in trouble or b) have it bite me in the behind later on down the line when I realize I’ve said too much.
Transforming from my day job into Bee the blogger is…
Very seamless. It’s really easy to come home and be like, ‘Alright, let me fire up the laptop and do a blog post.’ Blogging awakens a different part of my brain. I’m constantly using one part of my brain with work for the different things, and by time I get home that part of my brain is just exhausted. So it’s easy for me to say, ‘It’s blogging time; it’s fun time; it’s creative time,’ and then I find that I have a whole new set of energy because I’m accessing a different part of my brain that loves to do all the stuff that I do with the blogging.
Be sure to check out the rest of the digital thought leaders as they’re revealed each day by logging on to BlackEnterprise.com/BlackBloggerMonth.