🖤 Color Medicine: Black — Elegance, Rebellion, and the Phoenix in Eyeliner
🕶️ My Black Identity
Black has been my secret uniform for decades. In the early ’80s, I was a Chanel girl at I. Magnin in San Francisco — pearls, perfume, little black dress. Selling makeup was easy when you were nineteen with a fresh face, but what stayed with me wasn’t the cosmetics, it was the style. The simplicity of Coco Chanel’s vision: one clean line, one black dress, infinite power.
But underneath the Chanel pearls? I was secretly vibing with the Goth kids. Black eyeliner, black lace, black nails. I identified with their rebellion, their poetry, their darkness. Later, I saw it again in the beatniks — berets, black turtlenecks, smoky jazz clubs. Black has always been the color of outsiders who still look timeless doing it.
Bleep: “Translation: black makes you look like either a Paris runway model or a vampire who listens to The Cure. Sometimes both.”
🧠 The Psychology of Black
Black is the absorber of all light. Which makes it the most paradoxical “non-color” on the spectrum.
Authority & Formality: Judges, tuxedos, funeral suits. Black signals weight and seriousness.
Elegance & Style: The little black dress, the black tie, the black car. Effortless chic.
Rebellion & Nonconformity: Goth eyeliner, punk leather jackets, beatnik cafes — black says I don’t play by your rules.
Mystery & Protection: Black cloaks, black veils, black shades — black hides, shields, and transforms.
🌑 The Shadow of Black
Black’s depth can also turn heavy:
Death & Mourning: In Western culture, black is the color of grief.
Fear & Intimidation: Too much black can feel cold, unapproachable, even oppressive.
Isolation & Absence: Black can close off connection, symbolizing emptiness or detachment.
Bleep: “Or sometimes black just means you burnt dinner. Charcoal chic, baby.”
🖤 Black in Society & Style
Fashion: From Coco Chanel’s little black dress to Alexander McQueen’s gothic couture, black is the eternal staple. It’s slimming, dramatic, and always “safe.”
Art & Counterculture: Black berets and turtlenecks in ’50s beatnik cafés. Goth and punk in the ’80s — rebellion in leather and lace. Artists use bold black lines to make colors pop.
Food & Drink: Blackened catfish, black coffee, black garlic, licorice. Dark, bold, unforgettable.
Design: Black sofas, black cars, black headlines in bold font — black grounds the space and demands attention.
🍽️ Black as Medicine
Grounding foods: Black rice, black beans, blackberries — antioxidant-rich, nourishing.
Protective minerals: Black obsidian, tourmaline, onyx — often used to shield energy.
Charcoal: Detoxifies, filters, cleanses.
Coffee: The holy grail of morning survival.
Bleep: “Black coffee isn’t just a drink. It’s emotional support in liquid form.”
🧘 Three Contemplative Questions
What does black give you when you wear it — power, elegance, protection, or distance?
Where in your life could you use more of black’s grounding and seriousness, and where might you need to soften it?
How has black shown up as your rebellion — in style, in art, in music, or in your willingness to stand apart?
🎭 Final Word
Black is a paradox: safe and shocking, practical and mysterious, universally chic yet deeply personal. It absorbs everything and still somehow stands alone. If you’re drawn to black, your soul may be craving grounding, formality, or the shield of mystery. If you avoid it, maybe you fear endings, silence, or shadows. But black teaches us that in the ashes of death is the promise of rebirth.
Black has always been my happy color. I used to wear it to look thinner, but over time I realized it was something far deeper — it’s my soot and my crown.
The mark of the Phoenix who’s burned through illusions and still rises, laughing, barefoot, and covered in glitter. Black holds the ashes of every life I’ve outgrown and the mystery of what’s still being born. It’s strength, it’s silence, it’s the unknown that somehow feels like home. And under all that darkness, the light is waiting — radiant, infinite, and unapologetically me.
With love,
Tré Taylor 🌈🖤✨
Bleep: “And remember: black never goes out of style… unless you’re wearing it at a wedding where the bride’s mother already hates you. In which case — wear red, just to piss her off.
🌟 Next up: White — purity, clarity, the blank canvas, and the nightmare of spilling red wine on your favorite white pants
