CULTURE

Tracee Ellis Ross Launches New Beauty Line for Natural Hair

She’s been dreaming of starting the brand for twenty years.


1017-WM-COVR-04_largeNoWatermark.jpg
Mario Sorrenti

Tracee Ellis Ross is very, very busy. In addition to her acting and producing work on the sitcom Black-ish and its upcoming spin-off, Mixed-ish, her Daria spin-off Jodie (she’s serving as both the star and executive producer), and her status as one of Hollywood’s foremost fashion icons, Ross is launching a new product line. On Tuesday, September 3rd, the star took to Instagram to announce her new hair care brand, Pattern by Tracee Ellis Ross, a line for “curly, coily, and tight textured hair,” available on its website starting on September 9th, and will eventually hit Ulta stores nationwide. The line will consist of seven products: a shampoo, three different conditioners, leave-in conditioner, and two hair serums.

“[Pattern] is the result of 20 years of dreaming, 10 years in the making (I wrote my first brand pitch in 2008, right when girlfriends finished ) and 2 years of working with chemists,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’m so excited to share this with y’all.”

@Patternbeauty is here to empower and nourish curly, coily and tight-textured hair. 3b to 4c. The formulas are unique and packed with luscious & safe ingredients-trust me I know, because my panel and I tried 74 different samples to get these 7 formulas for phase one,” she continued. “[Pattern] is for those of us who need more than a quarter size of product. large conditioner sizes that actually fulfill the unmet needs of our community. accessible pricing because everyone should have access to their most beautiful hair in their own shower, and gorgeous packaging that conjures the legacy of our history and makes us all feel like the royalty that we are.”

Ross is widely known for her gorgeous curls. But for most of her career, her natural hair wasn’t embraced in Hollywood. “You could chronicle my journey of self-acceptance over the years through my journey with my hair, which I don’t think is unique to me,” she told WWD. Ross also spoke about the mainstream beauty industry’s failure to provide products for a range of hair types and skin tones, saying that “the culture of beauty has been so steeped in patriarchy, racism and sexism for so long.”

“It’s not that those skin tones and hair types haven’t existed, but there hasn’t been a large space and understanding for it,” she continued. “That’s why it’s taken me so long to make these dreams happen.”

“I’m excited for PATTERN to join the natural hair movement,” she wrote on Instagram. “And to celebrate our hair for what it is: beautiful!”