Black-Ish star Tracee Ellis Ross regrets not accepting her natural curls sooner, and trying to find a fit with society’s standards of beauty.
The actress daughter of Diana Ross has launched Pattern – a range of hair products which will include shampoos, conditioners and serums aimed at women with curly, coily and textured hair types – after confessing she struggled to come to terms with her unruly hair as a teen.
“Sadly, there were not a ton of images, outside of my family, of people who looked like me,” she told Glamour magazine. “I went through those teenage years when everybody is searching to figure out who they are and all of a sudden become so aware of how they look, how they are seen, what’s cool, what’s in.
“The culture of beauty that was around me… didn’t make space for me. As a result, I tried to beat my hair into submission, to do what I thought it should do. I straightened it, I dyed it, I fried it.”
However, Tracee admitted women of color still face “an underestimation in terms of our worth, our deservingness and our beauty”, and she regrets trying so hard to fit in with her peers.
“I look back on photographs of myself when I was young (with big hair) and I think: ‘Gosh, I took the long route to get back there’,” she smiled.
