I’m so pleased to speak to Donna Dia, the founder of the Beauty Beat, the UK’s only luxury beauty event for women of colour on today’s episode of Period Story podcast.
In this episode, Donna shares:
- Why having a very light period and being able to wear white jeans isn’t always a good thing
- How a thin uterine lining led to fertility complications
- How a routine D&C after a missed miscarriage led to Asherman’s syndrome
- The research she did to understand Asherman’s
- The long and traumatic journey, including multiple surgeries, to help her uterine lining grow
- How her fertility journey lead to the Beauty Beat
- Why the Beauty Beat is a dedicated event for women of colour and Black beauty
- The why behind THEE Beauty Beat goody bag
- And of course, the story of her first period
Donna says that it’s valuable to learn about your gynaecological health, whether you have a light or heavy period, so that you can advocate for yourself and be the champion of your health.
Thank you, Donna!
Get in touch with Donna:
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise Brothers: Hi Donna. Thank you so much for coming onto the show today. I’m really excited to speak to you about all the amazing work that you’re doing with the Beauty Beat, but let’s start off with my very first question, which is tell us a story of your very first period.
Donna Dia: Okay, well firstly, thank you for having me.
This is, yeah, really exciting and I love the podcast and, you know, just shining a light on all things, um, you know, our period cycles, all of that. So thank you. When I realised I was coming on, I really thought about it and it, I realised that it’s such a distinct memory for me. My first period and I was 11.
And, um, I was at my auntie’s house and it was funny ’cause I’d just started a, a new school and I think it was a, a classmate’s birthday and she was having a, a party at a. Like a, well you’d call a leisure center. So it was a swimming, a big swimming pool that had like slides and you know, a waterpark, I suppose.
And I started my period that morning. And obviously you are 11. You know, you think the it, it’s such a big. It’s such a big thing, or it felt like a big thing to me then. And also, I’m going to be in a swimming costume or potentially I’m meant to be in a swimming costume. You know, I’m meant to be in water. I didn’t know, obviously it was my first period, my mum and my aunties had always been very open about periods and things like that.
So I knew what, I knew what it was. I wasn’t shocked by it, but it was just the timing. And I remember sort of. Quite panicked, like going running out of the bathroom and going and telling my auntie, she was like, all right, calm down. Like, you know, and then she sort of spoke me through and she was like, you can still go swimming if you want to, and this is what we can do.
And yeah, so that was my first period. But I think that the conversation around, you know, periods and our cycles was so open and in our house as I was growing up, and that’s because of my mum’s first period, which I don’t think she’ll mind me telling her this story just quickly because I think the conversation in in her house as she was growing up was not as open and coincidentally, she had eaten a jam donut the morning that her period started didn’t really know much about periods, and she thought it was the jam coming out. Oh. And so I just said, because that’s such, you know, so that’s why my mum was always so open about periods and what it will be like when it starts and things like that, because she was just so shocked and had no idea what it was when she literally thought it was a jam donut that had kind of come through her body. So yeah, I tell that story to kind of give context as to why I knew what my period was. It was, you know, it, my mum had always been very open, my aunties and things like that. But yeah, that’s the story of my first period.
Le’Nise Brothers: And did you end up going swimming?
Donna Dia: I did, I did, yeah. I did end up going swimming and um, yeah, my auntie kind of prepared me and, and, and looked after me and sort of made sure I had all the things that I needed to, to be able to go. I was very anxious and nervous, but yeah, she’d explained it well and I. I had all, all the sort of materials I needed and I went swimming and it was fine.
And um, yeah, a few months later though, what was more sort of traumatic inverted commas at the time was, um, a few months after that I was in class. And again, we were like year seven I believe. And, um. A girl in my class who was the sort of loud girl, she found a sanitary towel in my bag.
I think I must have had it in my, and she kind of took it out in the class. And that is also a distinct memory ’cause I was mortified at the time. Um, so that wasn’t my first period, but it was a couple of months later and I was still kind of getting used to all of that. Sort of my cycle and, you know, sanitary towels and, and you know, it just felt mortifying that everybody knew and that it was a mixed school as well.
So there were boys in the classroom anyway. So that was a, that also is a memory around my period, not my first one, but sort of a very early one.
Le’Nise Brothers: You got your period at 11, and then what was your experience of your period like as you went through your teenage years?
Donna Dia: Do you know, I have to say, I have always had I know much more about my cycle and periods now, and I’m sure we’ll, we’ll get onto that.
I didn’t know at the time, but I’ve always had what I would describe. As a dream period. As in I’m super regular. I am, you know, I have a 24 day cycle. I’ve always had a 24 day cycle since, you know, probably I didn’t know at 11, but from when I, you know, started to understand what a cycle was and when my periods would come, it’s always been the same time.
It’s always been relatively light and pain free. Which actually, you know, for my years, previously or prior, felt like a dream period. It had very sort of almost dire complications when it came to fertility and having a baby, which I’m sure we’ll get onto later. But obviously in my teens and twenties I didn’t know anything about fertility, wasn’t really interested in that side of things, so having a very light period felt great.
I could always, you know, if I wanted to, I could wear white jeans. I had girlfriends where they would leak through max pads, max tampons never my issue because it was always relatively light. Um, so I never, and I never had, you know, masses of pain or anything like that. I I experienced more pain when I ovulate, and that’s, to this day, I can, you know, when we were trying for our babies, I never needed the tests. I always know when I’m ovulating.
So prior to children, my periods were always yeah, pretty easy.
Le’Nise Brothers: And what are they like now?
Donna Dia: Now we have, now I’ve had lots of complications around fertility, including Asherman’s. So they are very light, incredibly light to the point where it’s actually a hindrance.
I just don’t develop a very thick lining. Obviously I’ve never developed a very thick lining because my periods were always relatively light. And so when you need to have a baby, you need a thick lining. And so I’ve never had that. I then also had Asherman’s after, after some miscarriages, and so my periods now are, you know, wildly light.
Le’Nise Brothers: Can you say a little bit more about Asherman’s for people who aren’t familiar with it?
Donna Dia: Yeah, and I think, um, so, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this podcast and speak with you is ’cause I think that I, I just didn’t know enough about what my period was. I knew it came every month, you know, you know what you need to do, what you need to buy, all of those sorts of things.
But I didn’t know until, I didn’t know until I had. You know, sadly my first miscarriage that your period was a lining, I didn’t even know that. I didn’t know what lining was when the doctor was sort of saying, you know, there was implantation problems ’cause you’ve got a thin lining. I was like, what are you talking about?
And so I think that maybe that’s just a me thing, but I do think women perhaps should be told exactly what your period is. It’s a shedding of your lining that grows every month and you know, your lining is there to sort of support a growing baby. I didn’t know that. Maybe that’s just me.
And so when I, I got pregnant for the very first time, I, we sadly miscarried and I. I have always had a thin lining, which I didn’t know. So when I was, I had a, I had what they would call a missed miscarriage, so my body didn’t recognise that my baby had not survived, and so it just clung onto it, which meant that I was left with options to have, you know, our baby removed and again very novice in this area. I just went with what seemed like the quickest sort of way to end the trauma, which was a D&C, which scrape, you know, does what it does.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm-hmm.
Donna Dia: And, but what that meant is for someone with a very thin lining, it caused trauma to my already thin lining. So what that meant was that after that procedure and sort of once everything had sort of calmed down, my lining was non-existent and had sealed itself shut. So then I didn’t have any periods. My body was not, my body was doing, my cycle was still happening, but my cervix had the scarring because my lining was not functioning properly, let’s say, had sealed itself shut.
And so my periods weren’t coming out, if that makes sense. Obviously not.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah.
Donna Dia: A doctor, I’m just sort of talking of personal experience and so that is what they call Asherman’s syndrome, which again, never heard of in all of my life. And bearing in mind I was 36 at this point, so, you know, I was, you know, it wasn’t particularly early into my having periods. I’d had periods for a very long time by that point. But yeah, so Asherman’s is where your, your lining almost seals itself together and so your periods cannot sort of come out, I suppose. And obviously if something can’t come out, then something can’t go in, and so you can’t get pregnant when you have Asherman’s.
And so I had a miscarriage that then led to Asherman’s that then led to a number of surgeries to rectify that scarring and to try and help my lining to flourish so that then we could go on to conceive and have babies.
Le’Nise Brothers: After you had the surgeries, did you, were you educated more by your doctors or did you take it upon yourself to do the research to figure out what was going on?
Donna Dia: Oh, take it upon myself and, and this is what I find terrifying, is that if I was not the personality type that I am, that is quite persistent and ferocious, I would not have children. I have two young boys now, and we would not have them. You know, I went to my GP when my periods had disappeared and she was like, oh, that’s just menopause.
What? So it just happened overnight. Like at one point I was having very regular cycles, 24 days, you know, and then I get pregnant, I have a miscarriage, and then I’ve gone into menopause in like two months. And not just menopause, like perimenopause, like your periods have stopped menopause. Like you’re now Yeah, you’re past menopause.
I was like, that doesn’t make sense. And so yeah, I just literally, you know, did lots of research. Googled, you know, disappearing, you know, I did all of the Google searches and led you down a rabbit hole that somehow sprung up this word called Asherman’s that led me down a different rabbit hole to Facebook groups with women support groups where I was learning lots and lots about women who had Asherman’s, and that sounded like what I had. Um, and so from there I was able to research, but, you know, the treatment and the support that I was able to get had to be funded privately because the NHS were not also, I was kind of on a time thing, ’cause you know, I was in my late thirties, I wanted to have children. So, you know, when you say there’s a two year waiting list to see a consultant, to see if you have Asherman’s, that doesn’t really fit with the timeline that I know is available to me.
So yeah, a lot of research, a lot of appointments, private sort of route, a lot of wasted money because you don’t know a lot of things until you get further down the line. But yeah, happy ending because yeah, we do have our, our beautiful boys.
Le’Nise Brothers: Can you say a little bit more about the process that, of actually getting to your first pregnancy? Because you had these, you had the D&C, then you had this scarring, which led to Asherman’s, and then you did all of this research, and it sounds like there was a lot of, you know, frustration, self-funding, and then can you just say a little bit more about what led to, obviously not the nuts and bolts of what led to your pregnancy?
Donna Dia: Yeah, no, no, no, no. But I mean, it was, it was a, it was a very long and traumatic journey and, and I say very long and traumatic journey. It actually wasn’t, you know, I have girlfriends and the research that I’ve done, there are women who are in this cycle for five years, 10 years, 15 years, you know, our period of multiple miscarriages and, and sort of Harley Street and Wimpole Street and all of those, you know, fertility streets, I call them now was just under four years. So it’s actually quite short in comparison to, as I say, a lot of women. But obviously it doesn’t feel that way. But in terms of the journey itself you know, I got pregnant. I had my first miscarriage and then that led to Asherman’s, which led to a number of surgeries, um, to try and fix that. Once those surgeries happened, it was then trying to sort of solve the issue of my very thin lining, which had obviously been my, my, that’s, that’s just my body because it, my periods had always been light.
So if you, again, I’m not a doctor, but to my understanding, if you have very light periods, it means you have a very, you probably have a thin lining because your period is your lining. There’s not a lot of period, there’s not a lot of lining. And so I’ve never had a lot of period. And so as I say, which was great in my, you know, my, my younger years, but when it came to having a baby, it was very complicated.
So we now had to try and look into routes that would help my lining to grow, would help my lining to thicken. And the problem with that is that the methods to help your lining a woman’s lining grow and thicken in order for them to have a baby very much depends on which doctor you see. So you will see doctor A, who will say, this is absolutely what you need to do to make your lining grow, and you are desperate and you want a baby.
So you will spend that money to do that. That may not work. Then you’ll go to doctor B who says that’s complete rubbish. You don’t need to do that. What you need to do, this is from this route, and these are the treatments you need to take for thousands of pounds and you’re desperate. So you do it and you do you know? And then so you are seeing all of the medical doctors who I found there was no consistency in terms of treatment. There was no consistency in terms of what would make my lining grow. And then on the other hand, so that’s what you’re doing medically and financially and then holistically you are, you know, you are in the forums, you are eating, you know, a hundred dates and 8,000 Brazil nuts and you are having watercress like, like it’s popcorn and you’re doing everything. So, you know, it’s kind of twofold in the fact that holistically you are sort of beating yourself up and doing these brutal things and you know, in terms of just trying to make your lining and grow and then medically you’re kind of hanging onto every doctor’s word and trying everything you can to to stimulate that. So it’s a bit of a, you know, it’s a brutal battle and I have so much respect for women that do it for, you know, five years, 10 years and, and longer because it is just not easy. Um, and your cycle becomes a little bit, well, for me anyway, my cycle became, it, it became almost like a cycle of torture because every month you are, you get your period. So that means you’re not pregnant. Then you have, for me, I’ve got a in 24 day cycle. So you get your period means you’re not pregnant. That’s huge disappointment. One or two days of huge disappointment a morning. Then you spend the next sort of 10 days doing everything you can medically, holistically, you know, nutritionally to get your lining to, you know, at least six or seven millimeters.
And then you get to your scan and it’s two millimeters. And so then there’s, again, there’s another period of, you know mourning and a bit of trauma that for that, you know, for those results. And then you think, well, I’ll have a miracle. And so you try and try and try, um, for, you know, the remaining time between, you know, ovulation and, and your period to, to get pregnant and then you get your period again and you’re not pregnant.
And so then it, instead of it just being a cycle of, you know, your, your menstrual cycle, for me it became a cycle of torture. And my 24 days was just quite hellish really.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. And did you have any mental health support alongside of this?
Donna Dia: I mean, obviously I had my, my, my husband, my family. But in terms of, you know, I’m the kind of person that if you have, if you know, if there’s a bereavement or there’s trauma, I’m the first to say you need a therapist.
I, I’d the first to say, I will take therapy. But in all honesty, during this period every penny you have, you want to put towards the treatment you know, and you’re not really, for me, I wasn’t really interested in my mental health. I was laser focused on doing all my energy was towards you know, my lining, my cycle, getting pregnant, it didn’t really, although I’m sure therapy and mental health support would have benefited that it felt like a distraction or a diversion.
So no, I didn’t really do any of those things. Even when we had, you know, we had multiple miscarriages and I still wasn’t sort of thinking, okay, perhaps I should speak to somebody about this, which I think would’ve been sensible.
Le’Nise Brothers: When you look back now, do you feel like you have gotten to the point, because you’re talking quite openly about this now.
Do you think you’ve got to the point where you’ve been able to navigate and walk through the, that trauma that you experienced?
Donna Dia: Yes, absolutely. I think not only have you worked, have I worked my way through it, but I am always very open. Like people are quite shocked at how open I am about. You know, what we’ve been through.
I’m sure my husband wouldn’t be, but for me, I think the reason that I am is because when we were going through it, so when I had my first miscarriage, I didn’t know anyone that had I. I thought I didn’t. I actually did, but I thought I didn’t. Equally, if I record this podcast and I say the word Asherman’s, if there is one woman out there who is, who has Asherman’s or suspected Asherman’s or in the future, God forbid, experiences that, but they know what to do, they know what to call it.
They don’t have to spend six months figuring it out and wondering. Then for me that is that’s a conversation very well had and what have I got to hide? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s nothing that, again, I’m in a place where that feels so very far in the past that I do feel emotionally able to speak about it.
And so it doesn’t cost me anything to share this information that may hopefully, I hope it doesn’t. I hope nobody needs it, but if a woman does need it they’re able to, you know, to, to have some guidance to maybe listen back to this podcast and sort of think, oh, what did she say? Asherman’s, let me Google that, go to the GP armed with the information.
So I went to my GP saying, this is what I’ve got. These are the symptoms. This is what you need to do. This is where you need to refer me to get that help. So. You know, I did go to the GP in the end. We did it privately, but I did go to the GP armed with that information. But unfortunately wait lists and things were too long.
But it just means that if that information can be shared and people can get the knowledge, then I think, um, it’s really important to, to share if you are able to, from an emotional and mental health perspective, which I am. So I do.
Le’Nise Brothers: And I, I completely agree with you. All of these things that we’ve, we’ve almost like either suffered in silence about or just had these very whispered conversations about they need to come to light, and this is why I love having these conversations.
I want to talk a little bit about your periods, because you said that you had the dream period, and I think that’s really interesting because I’ve heard when people have, they, women have these really light periods, they always say, oh my period is a dream. It’s so light, it just comes and goes and that’s it.
How many days was your period?
Donna Dia: Three.
Le’Nise Brothers: Three days.
Donna Dia: Three days. And you know, so. It would be day one would be relatively heavy. Not, no, not heavy, would be visible, let’s say. But by day, so, so day one and a half. So a day and a half would be visible and I would need to wear sanitary materials or, you know, and then by the end of day two, not really day three, I mean literally finished.
And so for me it was always, you know, if we were going on holiday, for example, you know, in your twenties with your girlfriends, I never really had to worry about, you know, oh, you know, am I going to be on during that holiday? Or I had some girlfriends, for example, if we were going on a big girly holiday, they would take the pill so that they could skip a period.
Never had to do any of that, because I knew that if I did come on on holiday, it would be a day. It wouldn’t be painful. I wouldn’t necessarily leak through anything. The dream.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah, and it’s interesting because we hear so much about heavy periods and you know, the effects of that. But you know, on the flip side, having a really, really light period can mean like, and I say can because it doesn’t always, because I’ve, but I’ve seen this before where I’ve had clients, they’ve come to me, they say, oh, my period is two days, or it’s just really light the whole time.
I don’t even have to wear tampons or pads. I can just wear a panty liner.
Donna Dia: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: And you know, you kind of say, well, exactly what you experience. It’s, you know, we have to think about how we build up the lining of the uterus.
Donna Dia: I just had no idea that, you know, and we are talking from 11. Year, or maybe I probably wouldn’t have been aware of it, 11, but let’s say, you know, from 15 to 36, I had no idea that a light two to three day period was, in my case, indicative of potential fertility issues. I just thought I was lucky.
Le’Nise Brothers: And now you have your happy ending. You have two boys, and you also have another baby in the sense of your own business, your, you launched the Beauty Beat. Can you tell us about the Beauty Beat and why you felt this was so needed?
Donna Dia: Do you know? In a way, I think, you know, parts of why the Beauty Beat exists is down to my fertility journey and linked to sort of everything that we went through and I went through in terms of, you know, my period and my cycle. And that sounds strange, but bear with me. But it, I just found that when I was going through all of that, there wasn’t really anywhere to go in terms of, you know, people to speak to. Um, and a and a community. There were Facebook groups, which were great, but I suppose I felt like in going through, you know, sort of miscarriages and, you know, cycles and, and all of that sort of stuff. You want to talk to your girlfriends, you want to talk to people that you know, but they hadn’t been through that and neither had my mum or my aunties because they didn’t have, you know. I think my mum does have a light and a, a thin lining because she also has a very similar period cycle to me.
Um, or had but she also had me very, very young. So potentially the fertility issues weren’t there because she had me a lot younger. And so anyway, I say all of that because I didn’t feel like there was somewhere as a Black woman particularly, but as a woman, but as a Black woman particularly, that felt I can just go and be open here and talk about beauty and wellness and fertility in a space that pertains to me. And so that was in my mind as well as the fact that, you know, I’d worked in events for a very long time, beauty events, and they also, on the professional side, I hadn’t seen an event that kind of incubated women of colour and Black beauty and Black wellness either.
So I think all of it came together. Um, you know, the fact that there nothing like it existed. The fact that I was on maternity leave and had a lot of time to think about what, what the Beauty Beat might look. I mean, it wasn’t called back then, but what the event might look like. What I would want to offer the community that would come, the attendees that would come.
Why was it important to, to build an event that could share information, that could educate around our beauty, our wellness, our gynaecological health, all of those things. And so that’s kind of how Beauty Beat came together. I’m not going to say it was solely because of what I had been through, but I think that contributed to it as well as the idea being there.
Because professionally I had seen there was a gap in the markets.
Le’Nise Brothers: And in the beginning, did you get any pushback on the idea of having an event, dedicated to women of colour, Black women in in the UK?
Donna Dia: So I didn’t really get any pushback, as in, no one has ever said to me, I mean, I’ve mean a few people on TikTok, but no one has ever said to me, you know, why are you doing this?
Or you shouldn’t be doing this, or, you know. Why do Black women and women of colour need an event all to themselves? No one has ever said that to me sort of directly. However, you know, raising the money for Beauty Beat is very difficult. It’s an uphill struggle. I will never know if that is because some brands just don’t have budget or it’s because some brands don’t want to do it because it is for, it’s a dedicated event for women of colour and Black beauty.
I think if this event was taking place in the US you know, the, the funding cycle of Beauty Beat would be very different because the US. You know, historically, maybe not today, with everything that’s going on, historically, brands in the US have huge marketing budgets, but they also have dedicated budgets for African Americans.
So what that would mean is when I approach brands and sort of say, would you like to showcase at Beauty Beat? And it costs this much. They’re not taking that budget out of their overall marketing budget. They’re taking that budget. For Beauty Beat potentially out of the budget that exists, particularly for the community that Beauty Beat serves.
And I think that’s a big distinction between how things historically have run in the US and how things run in the UK.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah, and I, I remember when you approached me about it, about being involved in the health and wellness panel. I did some research and I was thinking to myself, I know that there are a ton of these sorts of events in the US but thinking like the, like it’s so obvious that something like this should exist in the UK.
Like, and you think about the numbers, the. Not only the number of women of colour and Black women in the UK, but the financially, how much we spend on,
Donna Dia: oh my goodness,
Le’Nise Brothers: beauty on hair, you know, on wellness and all of it. And so it should just financially be a no-brainer for a brand to be involved.
Donna Dia: And this is what I say to brands.
I say, don’t you know, don’t do it. To tick a D and I box, do it because it makes really good financial, commercial business sense, because, you know the Beauty Beat community are a powerhouse of a consumer group. We spend so much money on our, you know, on our hair, on our skin, on our makeup, on our wellness.
It is such a priority for us as a community generally. Obviously not every single, you know, Black women or women of colour, but generally we invest. And so yeah, as I say to brands all the time. Yeah, look at the numbers. Look at the spend. Don’t take my word for it. Go to the organizations that look at budget and spend and income and, and look at the data and do it for, do it to make money.
If that’s why you want to do, you know, if that’s, if that, if it comes down to that, do it for that reason. But yeah, it’s a smart business decision to, to participate in Beauty Beat. And I say that, you know, all the time, if there was a secret camera, you know, recording my meetings, you would hear me say that time and time again to brands.
The fact that you need to invest in the, you know, Black women and women of colour because we invest significantly in you. So why would you not nurture a consumer group that is so important to your brand that’s so necessary? The success of your brand is in part due to this community. So you need to, you know, I believe you need to respect that.
You need to be grateful for that, and you also need to invest in that and, and nourish that commitment and loyalty that we have as a consumer group in the main to these brands. And most of the time these brands are wonderful. The brands that we work with are incredible and they recognise that. And you know, so then they do participate not only in Beauty Beat and but other activities and other, you know, activations and, you know, marketing , strategies that really do prioritise women of colour and Black beauty.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm. So can you talk a little bit about the evolution of the Beauty Beat? You, you started when you were on maternity leave and last year’s event was the biggest yet.
Donna Dia: Yes.
Le’Nise Brothers: And I remember walking in and I was just going to really blown away ’cause I had never seen anything like it before, you know, in the UK.
Donna Dia: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: And I just remember this feeling of just almost feeling held. You know, like, wow, everything here. I could potentially use, you know, and like I’ve been to other events for, you know, other magazines, magazines have put on stuff and I’ve, you know, you go in that feeling, well, that’s not for me. That’s not for me.
But I never had that feeling at all. So can you talk a little bit about the evolution of the event, not only from a kind of business side, but also from a consumer side, how you’ve seen that change as well?
Donna Dia: Yeah. So, and, and that was it, you know, in terms of what you’ve just said is, is again, you know, contributes to why I started Beauty Beat, because I felt that I was going to other events, which were wonderful. Other beauty events, wonderful beauty events, but I would be like, oh, I can’t use that or that, you know, eyebrow pencil in the goodie bag isn’t, you know, I can’t use that. It’s not the right shade or, or, you know, or that dry shampoo or that faked hand, not for me.
So it would feel a little bit excluded. I’d feel is slightly excluded. And so I wanted to create something that just. Really did centre. You know, women of colour and Black women that really, every single, my dream for Beauty Beat that was, was that when our attendees, you know, walked into Beauty Beat, they would feel from every single angle, you look left, you look right, you look up, you look down.
It is all for you. It is all, every inch of the event has been designed with you in mind as with you as the starting point, the middle point, and the end point. As a woman of colour, as a Black woman, that that is what Beauty Beat, how it was designed. You know, so when you are looking around, it looks like you, when you are shopping or you know, trying the products, they are all for you.
Whether that be the shade of the foundation or the fact that the conditioner is for our hair type or whatever it might be, or that the wellness conversation pertains to fertility from our perspective or you know, our gynaecological health. We’re going to talk about fibroids, we’re going to talk about things that disproportionately affect us.
And that’s really what I wanted to create. And, you know, when I had those ideas and those visions, I didn’t know. If that would be for five women or whether it would be for a thousand. I just, that’s just what I wanted to create. And so in terms of that evolution, we did, we, the first Beauty Beat was in 2022 and we sold 500 tickets.
And that blew my mind because, you know, it was year one. I have to caveat that with my background is large scale events, so. I’m very, very used to creating events for a thousand people, 2000, 5,000. That is what I used to do in my sleep. So 500 from a professional perspective felt quite small, but from a personal perspective of, oh my goodness, 500 Black women have bought tickets to this event.
I literally, on, on day one, we had sort of, ’cause it’s 500 across the weekend, so we had 250 women sort of, you know, coming through the doors and at one point it was packed and, and I literally burst into tears just because it just felt it just felt beautiful. It felt like so very special. Didn’t, not from a work perspective, it just, I just couldn’t believe that we had all of those women who’d had the faith to buy a ticket in year one, you know, before anyone knew about the goodie bag or anything like that.
And to come to Beauty Beat and, um, yeah, as you, you said, sort of, you know, three years later. That was 2022. And then three years later, in 2024, we had 2,500 women come through the doors and it still felt just as special because for me, I’m like, oh my goodness, I can’t get my head around the fact that, you know, we’ve been able to.
Bring together, build a community of so many women who, you know, I hope, feel like you. You know, they feel seen, they feel centred, they feel held, and they feel free to kind of just, you know, talk and engage and just just to be, just be. And you know, this year in 2025, we are going for 4,000 attendees.
And so this will, you know, it will grow again, hopefully. And again, it’s growing. Yes. Beauty Beat is a business. Um, and so of course there’s, you know, there’s bottom lines, there’s P&Ls and all of those sorts of things. But if I’m honest, the motivation to get 4,000 women in the building isn’t necessarily for my bottom line or the P&L.
It’s just to see that will be something to behold and something that will, I think, feel so special that I just can’t wait.
Le’Nise Brothers: What sort of feedback have you got from attendees?
Donna Dia: I mean, some of the feedback is just again, like, I’m quite an easy crier, so, you know, you know, and, and I, I, you know, feedback from any attendee, good or bad is always valid and always welcomed.
But the feedback that we get is just, it, it’s almost a little bit sad sometimes because women that attend for the first time, you can see the kind of genuine emotion and shock in their faces that, you know, they, they just didn’t think that they would be able to access such an event or experience such an event on UK soil.
And so when I say it’s sad, it’s just because I love that Beauty Beat is filling a gap, you know? Absolutely. It’s my business, it’s my baby, and I’m, I’m very happy of that. But I’m sad that it is, do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. I kind of, I’ll never forget. I think it was, well, I’ve had it twice now in year one.
And also in last year where you know, I had an elder elders, two elder women come up to me. And the first year it was, she was an American lady, but she’d lived in the UK for, you know, many, many, many years. Her daughter, who was also a grown up and was there, had, was born in the UK So I think she’d been in the UK like, you know, going on 30 years.
And she just said, it feels like I’m home. And like she had tears in her eyes and, you know, she looked great, but she looked, you know, wonderful and a blessed and aged woman. I think she probably was in her, you know, mid to late sixties, you know, but you never know with us, you know, sometimes she could have been in her seventies, that’s what she was an elder.
And I just, that moved me, like it moved my heart to have an elder lady come up to me with tears in her eyes and say Thank you, like. Yeah, that was quite an emotional moment and it happened again last year. A different lady who again was, you know, she was an elder and she sort of just said, I can’t believe this exists.
I can’t believe A, that you just have created this, like you as just, you know, a normal Black woman have created this and the fact that we are here and I think that feedback is always, is very, always feels very special. And then you’ve got everything in between of, you know, young ladies who are like, this is brilliant and, you know, they love the fact that all the products are for them and or the, you know, the foundation shades and, you know, for them and, and so you get all the feedback and uh, but also we get feedback that sort of says, you know, we want different things. Can next year can you do this? And, and that really helps the team too because, you know, I have, I had have a vision for Beauty Beat, but I’m just one person.
So it’s always helpful to hear from other women of colour, from other Black women what they want too, because ultimately Beauty Beat is for them. So I need to know what you want, you know, what they want in order to be able to keep delivering an event that truly feels like it’s about the community, that it’s centring us , and that it is truly for us.
Le’Nise Brothers: Hmm. Can we talk about the goodie bag? Yeah. ’cause I, I opened it up when I got home and you know, you do, you go to events, you do events, you get a goodie bag, you think, oh great, I’ll have a look. And it just, you know, there’s some nice bits and pieces. But when I open that goodie bag. Oh my word. I was just like, this is incredible.
Like full size products. Products that I would actually use. I mean, I was blown away. So tell me more about the goodie bag.
Donna Dia: So, goodie bags are, are my kind of, I don’t know, I’m, I’m a bit obsessed with goodie bags. Okay. So the Beauty Beat goodie bags. So just in my personal life as a, just as Donna over the years, I hate when I go to an event and.
Firstly that there’s paper in the goodie bag. Like don’t give me leaflets. I don’t want leaflets. I want product. I don’t love when there’s food in goodie bags. I don’t want a snack bar. I can go to Tesco’s or say it wherever and buy a snack bar. So no. And also, I can’t bear samples, like samples sizes. I just think I don’t know why they exist. Like, because Right. A sample exists, I suppose, because what you know, brands think is that, you know, you’re going to try it and you’re going to like it. But how am I going to low if I like something when I’ve tried it for like 2.5 days with this little teeny tiny thing that, you know, it’s a moisturizer.
I’ve been able to cover one cheek. And an ear lobe, like I don’t know if I like it. So for me it needs to be full size. I need it to be dedicated beauty products. And I say to brands, again, it goes back to that sort of, I. You know, just treat, you know, treat your consumers, the community well, it’s a full-size product.
Yes. I, I do appreciate it’s expensive for the brands to, to give all of those units of product. But equally, I also stand on, stand my ground by saying that when you know, 2,500 women receive your conditioner or your facial wash or whatever it might be in that goodie bag, and they use it for, you know, two months or however long that full size product lasts, they are converted and they then purchase and repurchase and repurchase. So for the investment of giving. The full size product, you might have a loyal customer for the next 2, 5, 10 years who’s purchasing at full price that product again and again and again. So, no, you can’t put samples in. It does have to be full size, and those are the rules.
Le’Nise Brothers: I mean, you’re absolutely right. There is, from like a personal perspective, there is a, a moisturizer from 456 Skin. Yes. And I’ve been using that and I like, I tend to just use it sparingly, but mm-hmm. I’m about to run out and I will be buying that again.
Donna Dia: See, that’s the thing. And so. You, that product has always been good, you, right?
So that as, as you know, all of the products, they’re always, they have always been good and they have existed for however long. But you might not have known about 456 Skin day hack. And if you did say, say it came up on, you know, your social media feed or wherever you, you know, you get your content from.
You might have thought, oh, but is it really going to work for me? And how much is it? And I’m not sure. Whereas now you’ve had the chance to try it and so you’ve tried it. You, you see that it works well on your skin. You see that for you, it’s a really good fit and now you’re going to repurchase. And that is exactly what I say to brands.
I’m like, make the investment for the goodie bag because believe me your products are brilliant, like across the board, so you are going to convert. And so yes, that is, um, that’s why I insist on full size and also because again, I’m a bit of a goodie bags, I suppose a goodie bag snob. I, you know, I only want full size products in my goodie bags that I receive.
And I get irritated by other, what I call filler items. I, mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. So can you give us a little sneak peek about what’s coming up this year?
Donna Dia: Yeah, I mean, so this year is, I mean, I say this every year because it’s genuinely true, but this year is obviously going to be even bigger than, you know, previous years.
It’s going to be our biggest Beauty Beat yet because we will be welcoming, hopefully a lot more, you know, many more attendees through the doors. But equally we’ve taken on, just our biggest venue space yet as well. So not only, will we be increasing our attendees, we’re also increasing the size of the venue, which means that you know more brands, you know, more products, more engagement, more treatments.
And so again, you know, even though Beauty Beat is growing, it always comes back to treating the community, and that’s what it’s about. So when brands, you know, ask, can we participate? Absolutely. If you are an appropriate brand, we want you there. But how are you going to nurture the women that are attending?
What are you putting in the goodie bag? What are you doing on your stand to make sure that they’re feeling, you know. They’re just feeling special when they’re feeling you know, treated well and all of those sorts of things. So we just always want to expand on that and hope that this year we’ll be delivering even more of that.
And then obviously there’s all the extra bits, which I can’t sort of reveal too much, but, you know, great talks. Great brands, lots of experiential treatments, lots of complimentary treatments and yet, and lots of women, familiar faces on the stage at the event for everyone to kind of, you know, just engage with and have the most beautiful day, I hope.
And leave feeling full, feeling seen, feeling special and just feeling like, you know, you are ready to just, what’s the word? I hope that everyone leaves Beauty Beat feeling restored and refreshed.
Le’Nise Brothers: Well, I definitely did last year, so I’m just really looking forward to this year’s event.
Donna Dia: Good, thank you.
Le’Nise Brothers: What’s the one thought that you’d like to leave listeners with today?
Donna Dia: I think the one thought I’d like to leave listeners with is learn about your cycle. Learn about your gynaecological health whether you have light periods, whether you have heavy periods. Advocate for yourself, do your research and you know, just make sure that you are the champion of your health and take the time to investigate that. Even if you don’t have any you know, it is not about symptoms, it’s just about knowing yourself, knowing your cycle. I was able to push for my Asherman’s diagnosis because I knew my body inside out. I knew what my cycle was.
I knew when I got to 26 days, 27 days, and there was no period. I knew there was a problem, but I only knew that and was so confident in that self-diagnosis because I knew my body. If I didn’t know my body and I didn’t know my cycle as well as I had, it might have taken a much longer time to have got the help that I needed, which might have meant I didn’t have children, or I only had one child, or you know, who knows?
But my point is, is that. We just need to know ourselves, um, and know our bodies, whether that be our cycle, our breasts, whatever it might be just to, to take that time. Life is busy, life is hectic, but you know, none of that matters if you don’t have your health. So that’s what I’d probably say.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. How can people get in touch with you?
Donna Dia: The Beauty Beat event on Instagram. TikTok, the website, you know, follow us, engage with us. The event is this November. Get your tickets and come and see us. The whole team will be there, myself included. And we’ve got lots and lots of beautiful things planned. So yeah, come along.
Le’Nise Brothers: Great. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Donna Dia: Thank you for having me. It’s been wonderful. Could have chatted for hours.