Known for her impressive halo of curls and longtime advocacy of natural hair, actor Tracee Ellis Ross is nothing short of a beauty icon. She constantly shows off ways to celebrate her crown in all its glory, be it a stretched out fluffy ‘fro or a defined curly fringe, plus intricate braids, cane rows and high and low buns. 

Three days ago, Ross posted a throwback gallery on Instagram to show that she hasn’t always had it easy when it came to embracing her hair. “If my hair could talk - oh, the stories it would tell,” she started the caption with. “Society told me there was a right way to wear my hair and a right way to look… I beat my curls into submission - putting body lotion [in it]… blowouts, relaxers… ponytails so tight they gave me a headache.”

Ross then detailed how her “healing journey” began when she started loving her hair, a sentiment many of us with natural and textured hair have experienced (or have yet to). Her gallery, a timeline throughout her career and life since the 80s, shows the curls we know and love today as clearly having had gone through a lot, with limp, straight ends as a result of damage.

The post was clearly gearing up for something; Ross then went on to drop an Instagram photo of her gleaming bronzed (and naked) self sitting proud, announcing the launch of something the curly and afro-haired community never knew we’d been waiting for. 

“PATTERN // my new hair care brand specifically for curly, coily, and tight textured hair.” she captioned the post. She said Pattern was “the result of 20 years of dreaming, 10 years in the making… and 2 years of working with chemists.”

“I was dreaming about doing this all through high school,” she told Allure in an exclusive interview. “I had logged hours and hours in the trenches with my hair. Many of us can chronicle the journey of our self-acceptance through the journey of our hair. I think, in all honesty, the timing is perfect.”

The Pattern line-up consists of a shampoo, three conditioners in different densities, two oil serums (jojoba and argan), a shower brush, clip, and microfiber towel. The most exciting aspect is that you can tailor the shampoo and conditioner bottle sizes depending on your needs, opting for a 80ml shampoo and a 860ml conditioner if you get through the creamy stuff faster than the soapy. 

Although the natural hair care market is growing, with crafted, black-owned products increasingly becoming a reality, choices are still fairly limited compared to what’s available for straight and Caucasian hair. Unfortunately, products are largely on the pricier premium end of the spectrum, or super cheap with several good quality brands in between.  

At $9 (£7.50) for the smallest product and $42 (£35) for the largest, Pattern is set to make natural hair care affordable for everyone. “If we are in a time right now, where we have gone from our hair being about a revolution to a celebration, where we allow our crowns to flourish as electric, beautiful, and gravity-defying, then we need for everyone to have access to those products so that their hair can feel as beautiful and as hydrated as it should,” Ross told Allure. “The goal is to give people access to their best curls in the bathroom. I don’t believe that people should have to be dependent on a professional to feel their most beautiful and for their hair to be healthy.”

Pattern is launching on patternbeauty.com on 9 September, and in Ulta in the US (with no UK shipping, sob) on 22 September. Let us pray for deliverance to UK curlies. 

Image: Getty