When Trinidadian journalist Patrice Grell-Yursik started her hair and beauty blog in 2006, social media was still young. YouTube wasn’t the video archiving behemoth it is today. If you wanted to learn how to deal with natural afro-textured hair, you were heading to a blog hosted on WordPress or Blogger for information.
These blogs hosted by mostly amateur hair experts were a godsend then for women who had no clue how to deal with their kinks and coils and people’s reactions to them. Afrobella.com launched in August 2006 and rapidly created a lasting space for itself. If you were reading her blog, you might have also read curlynikki.dom and Black Girl Long Hair by Leila Noelliste, and the now defunct maneandchic.dom
Most of the early bloggers have long since pivoted, but Grell-Yursik never stopped updating her blog. She shared her haircare journey on her site, taking millions along as she got curly cuts and learnt about pre-poos and why shampoos with parabens should be avoided.
She started the blog while working full-time at the Miami News Times as a cultural reporter. Afrobella became a space for the stories that would not find a space on the news site.
“I wanted to tell more expansive stories that really focused on black beauty, plus-sized styles, loving yourself, the people that I admired, the people who helped me to figure out who I was in terms of my identity and in terms of how I wanted to present myself to the world,” she said.
As the blog evolved, we saw her reach and influence grow. Grell-Yursik was being invited to events that went beyond her hair and beauty reach, like the African American Film Critics Association Awards, a Kay Jewelers sponsorship, and the redesign of her home office. She took us on those trips with her.
Reading Afrobella, we shared the highs. But faithful readers also shared the lows, so when she was physically ready to do so in early October, Grell-Yursik shared her cancer diagnosis. Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that targets the plasma cells, affecting the bone marrow and the body’s ability to create functioning antibodies. The symptoms are hidden.
Her path to diagnosis began during a trip home in October 2023. A misjudged pothole on the North Coast Road on the way to Las Cuevas fractured her spine in several places. Amazingly, she was unaware of the extent of the damage; she thought that she had strained her back.
Cancer and a fractured spine were the unpleasant surprises she received when she was diagnosed in January. There are no symptoms to look for with multiple myeloma, and diagnosis can be difficult as both doctor and patient have to navigate through a range of vague issues to finally land on the target.
Dr Mariama Alleyne, a local neonatologist who was herself diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018, said patients need a lot of support because the diagnosis “is expensive, it is soul-crushing, it is life-changing.” It is also not well-known.
Fortunately for Dr Alleyne and Grell-Yursik, both are now in remission or reading negative for cancer cells, which both said was a beautiful feeling. Since her all-clear in August, Grell-Yursik’s world has reopened. She has been going to every concert possible. Missy Elliot, Pearl Jam, Beck, and Anderson Paak—she’s seen them all. And now that doctors have given her all-clear, friends and family are coming to Chicago to visit her. This means there will be trips to restaurants and other spaces for get-togethers.
As a writer, words mean freedom, but cancer was so all-encompassing that she could not transfer the words in her head to the page. Returning to health means that desire has returned.
Grell-Yursik is returning to work and has fallen back in love with blogging as a result. As the Godmother of Brown Beauty Blogging, Patrice Grell-Yursik is still attracting brand deals. Tracey Ellis-Ross’ Pattern Beauty reached out to her about their recently launched hand-held steamer. She had to tell them about her health. They listened and created a cute short-haired drawing to accompany her feature interview on their website.
There is also a sponsored post on Afrobella.com
Today social media is dominated by video: YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, unlike in the early 2000s. Is there still space for blogs? “I sure hope so,” she says. And Grell-Yursik is ready for the new challenge.