Introduction
When we think of beauty, what comes to mind? Confident women with beautifully made-up faces, sheen hair, silky skin and glamorous poses. But for Ibukun, it is much more than that, it is a tool she uses to spread awareness and empower women (and men) who have similar struggles as she does.
You see, when we came across Ibukun we fell in love with her sense of style, and her flawlessly beat face. It piqued our curiosity to know what she’s about.
It turns out that Ibukun has a message, and beauty is one of the tools she uses to get the word out. We knew we had to have a talk with her.
Here’s our interview with @theimabong. We hope you are as inspired and intrigued as we were.
Question 1
Hi Ibukun, thank you for joining us today for this interview. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? For people who are wondering who Ibukun Ajayi is.
Hi, I am Ibukukoluwa Imabong-Abasi Ajayi. I am a communications specialist, I am a lover girl (chuckles), and a hopeless romantic.
I love movies, music. I cherish spending time with friends and family. I am fun to be around. I love to create sickle cell awareness, because I am a sickle cell warrior, and advocate. I also love food—not a big fan of cooking— but, I love to eat (laughs out loud)
I love going out—I am actually an ambivert because I can be introverted and stay indoors, and be comfortable with my solitude. Yet, I also enjoy going out and being social, especially with friends and family. You know, I enjoy having a nice time.
I am really passionate about inspiring other people by using my life’s experience as a teaching tool for others. I really want to leave my mark on the world by leaving the world a better place than I met it.
I want to be known for my tenacity, my courage, and my impact.
Question 2
People who know you, know that you share a lot about your life through your essays and blogs. In a world where most people would share anything but their stories, especially one as insightful as yours, why do you share these vulnerable stories of your life?
I share my life stories as a teachable moment for others. I also share it because I know there are a lot of people who are going through these life situations and feel like they’re in this alone.
As you asked, a lot of people will share anything but their intimate life experiences. They’d rather share their successes, their fun life moments. But the parts of their lives that people can relate to—that make them human, they keep to themselves.
I realized when I started struggling that there were not a lot of people I could relate to because I did not know or see others who were going or went through the same struggles I was going through.
So, I decided that I will be that person for other people. You know, that relatable person, that someone can point to and say “oh yeah, if Imabong can get through it, I can too.”
I also want people to learn from my mistakes, and how to do better in similar situations. To help people realize that if you think your life is terrible, others have it worse. To help people to reflect and be grateful in those times they read about stories of how other people are going through difficult circumstances, and they realize how pale their problems are in comparison.
And above all, creating awareness for people living with sickle cell. Because as a sickle cell warrior, I know it is up to us to enlighten people (even though it shouldn’t be), nonetheless, we are the ones that carry the burden of living with the sickle cell anomaly. We know the realities of navigating life as a sickle cell warrior.
The best people who can enlighten anyone on the subject are warriors themselves. It is up to us to tell people not to bring more children into this world to suffer what we have gone through because that will just be wicked and evil.
We have gone through this, and it is not something we wish on our enemies. So, yea, these are why I share my stories.
Question 3
Your resilience is admirable—you forge ahead even when others with similar experiences to yours have thrown in the towel. Who or where do you draw strength from?
I draw my strength from God. I am Christian. I believe in God, He has been my rock and my strength. Because, there are a lot of times you are surrounded by people, but yet you feel very alone. Because they don’t understand, though they try, they can never grasp how insane it is to be in this position.
Going through illnesses and the complications that come with living with sickle cell, it is only God who can comfort you and give you the strength to keep going.
So, yes, God is my number one–He is my strength and backbone.
And right after is my family. I have a very supportive family, they stand by me, they support my dreams, they encourage me, they’re not ashamed of me putting my life out there.
They’re not aloof— they are very involved and show up anytime I need them to.
I mentioned in another interview that family can make or break a warrior, because It’s not every time when I feel down, or I am going through it that I voice it out to my family and usually, other warriors and people who have medical issues do the same. And the reason is that we don’t want to be a burden on our family.
It takes a family that really cares and is involved to notice that something has changed with your countenance or behaviour.
Sometimes, my mom would notice and say “you are quiet these days, is everything okay? Are you okay?” She can tell when something is off with me because she pays attention.
Yes, my family has been my rock—every member of my family—they’re my backbone. They’re God to me in flesh, and I am very grateful for them.
Question 4
Growing up as a young child and adolescent with so many struggles, what resources did you wish were available to you that would have made the journey a lot easier to navigate?
I wish there was more information about how strong people living with sickle cell could be, instead of focusing on “how they could die at any time,” or “how weak they were, so they should stay at home and not go to school.” “How getting married was going to be an issue.” “How everything in life was stacked up against them.”
There was so much information about all these things you weren’t supposed to do and almost no information about sickle warriors who are doing amazing things in the world.
I always say representation is very important, and that is one thing I lacked growing up. There was no one I could look up to and say, “This is who I want to be like. This is my inspiration. If this person can do this, so can I.”
I get a lot of DMs from parents who have sickle cell warriors, and they say to me, “I am so glad I follow you because you give me hope for my child. I show them your videos from time to time. They look up to you.”
This is what I lacked growing up—there was so much lack of awareness back then (there is still, but back then it was worse). It was so bad that people assumed that if you had sickle cell, it was a death sentence. So people were biding time till you died.
No one was talking to you about thriving and surviving, and how you are going to overcome, they were really just waiting for you to die.
There were no communities that encouraged me or urged me on. Thankfully, I did not give in to the limiting voices around me to stop me from forging ahead and building the life I wanted for myself. In fact, I am going beyond the line the world has drawn for me as a person living with sickle cell.
Question 5
I am curious, is there any story you can share that was the turning point, that made you think “Enough is enough, I am taking hold of the reins of my life from henceforth.” Any story that started you on your victory story in health and life. Can you share a story?
There is no particular story that comes to mind. I have always been a resilient kid, as I said I have always tried to step out of the lines that were drawn for by society, and come out of the boundaries of sickle cell—I have always been a fighter.
Yes, there were times when I wanted to give up. I remember especially when I was dealing with leg ulcers and I had it for a couple of years, and it wasn’t healing, I was so depressed, suicidal, and overwhelmed as a very young girl dealing with so much pain and insanity.
My life was turned upside down. I went through so much that I had to leave the initial university I attended, write all my entrance examinations and start anew in another university—it was so much to deal with at 16/17 years old. I was in a really dark place.
But one thing that kept me going was a saying from my mom: what if you did something drastic today, like ending your life, then you got to the other side, and they showed you how different your life would have been if only you slept and woke up the following day, if only you persevered for one more day.” This always rang in my head to take a day at a time, not to try and think far ahead into the future.
Surviving each day is a win. And this is how I keep going.
So, there has not been any particular turning point for me, I have simply refused to be beaten down, I refuse to lose to sickle cell. It’s like I am in a constant battle with it, and I refuse to lose. I do everything within my power to win each battle.
Furthermore, I also believe in sharing about my struggles online, and finding people who could relate, which kept me creating, and helped me find and build my community.
Question 6
I see beauty and fashion are a big part of personal branding online, when did you discover your affinity for beauty?
My mom used to model when she was younger, and I grew up seeing a very beautiful woman—my mom is a stunner. I remember her having very long hair, and she’d do her hair and makeup before going to work.
She was a fashionista, she dressed so well. In fact, before I realized I could not do a 9–5 job because of my health challenges. I aspired to work in an office so that I could dress up like my mom to work.
My mom was a huge fashionista (chuckles), so growing up and watching her I fell in with beauty and I inherited her slim physique and her model worthy body, and all of that. So, I fell in love with beauty from a very young age.
And what made it a big part of my life apart from watching my mom as a child was that I grew up surrounded by this idea that people with sickle cell should look a certain way—not beautiful but like people suffering from Kwashiorkor, and it did not sit right with me. Because when I look in the mirror, I see a beautiful girl staring back at me.
There are many other sickle cell warriors that are beautiful—men and women alike. I knew I had to change this narrative, I had to play my part to ensure that people don’t have that perception of sickle cell warriors being ugly.
Till date, I still get messages and read comments of people telling me that I don’t look like a warrior.
And I respond to them with, “How are we supposed to look like? Is there a certain way we should look?”
This is part of what influenced me to pursue beauty as a big part of my personal brand, and I hope to partner with a brand to launch a line that preaches the message that warriors are beautiful and stunning.
There is no one looking for anybody—everyone looks different. I want that stigma about how warriors should look to end.
Question 7
If there are two skin-care products you can do without, what are they and why?
This was a hard one, but I have to go with foaming cleansers. This is because I have really dry skin, and many foaming cleansers strip your skin of its natural oil and worsens dryness. And maybe mattifying products, even though you cannot avoid using at least soft matte foundations because they last longer. Anything that is extremely mattifying, I tried to avoid it.
Question 8
If there are any makeup brands you can splurge on without thinking twice about it, what are they, and why?
I would say MAC, I recently became a MAC girlie. I was gifted MAC soft matte foundation, and I fell in love—it’s so good.
It is actually the new MAC Studio Fix Soft Matte Foundation, and I love it. I also got some MAC lipsticks and I love them.
So, whenever I have the coins, because MAC is very expensive (laughs out loud) I probably have to save towards it. I need to start saving now before the bottle I have finished so I can get another one.
I didn’t understand the hype about high-end products until I tried that MAC foundation, I was like “Okay, I get it now. This is actually so good.”
Another is Slyvimak Powder. I really want to get their powder palette. I was at a Christmas Make-Up Fair, and I wanted to get it, but it was so much more than I had budgeted. If I had the funds, I will definitely splurge.
I recently started using Nuban Beauty products, and I love those as well. When I have the coins, I’ll splurge on these products.
And I am looking to try other products next year.
Question 9
Before you go, if there is any message you have for young adults who share similar circumstances with you, what would you tell them?
I’d say this: as much as you can, try to drown out all the negatives and focus on the positives. I know this is not an easy thing to do because I am bombarded with negatives every day, and I probably have it worse because my life is in the spotlight.
But as much as possible, try to drown out all noise and negativity from all around you—let the positives be your focus.
A trick I use in my daily life is to not think too much about tomorrow or what it brings, because when I do, I get stressed and overwhelmed. I will focus on how to get by today. Like I said, living through every day is a win for me.
And also celebrate your wins, celebrate yourself. Take yourself out, buy yourself nice things, treat yourself well.
The world won’t always treat you well, and as I said in one of my other videos…be your own sugar daddy (laughs out loud) ! Take care of yourself, don’t disregard yourself to a point where you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror.
Always put yourself first—love yourself. Because before you can even accept love from others, you need to love yourself.
And once you love yourself, you realize you are worth the love and adoration of others.
Remember to also drink water, take your routine medication, and don’t stress too much about what tomorrow holds.
Remember, God has got all of us in the palm of His hands, and we will be fine.
Thank you so much for this interview and these insightful questions.
Thank you so much Imabong for sharing these with us. Your life is inspiring, and we look forward to talking to you again soon.