Tracee Ellis Ross never saw other women with her hair type growing up.
The 47-year-old actress – who has her own haircare company, Pattern – felt "very supported" by her family when it came to her hair but struggled to find that in the media and wider world and with a lack of social media when she was growing up, she found it hard to talk with her community.
Speaking to Elle magazine, she said: "I was very supported in my family around my hair. But in terms of seeing all different kinds of versions in the wallpaper of my lives out in the world, I wasn’t seeing it. And I was getting confused. All of the things that I was taught from the media were like, I was supposed to have easy breezy beautiful hair. Bouncing and behaving. My hair didn’t blow in the wind! All of these things didn’t match up … I was like, ‘What? My hair?’ And, you know, there was no social media at the time so there was no connection between the community and me."
Meanwhile, the ‘Black-ish’ star previously revealed she thinks her haircare company fills a "real void" in the industry.
She explained: "I feel like I was persistent for 10 years for a reason. The dream started as a personal desire to have products that worked for me that could all look the same in the bathroom … I was like, is there one line that could just look pretty in here? So it started as personal; just really wanting and genuinely looking for products that were not only good for my hair but also made it look great. And then, as my journey continued, as I’ve expressed so many times, realising that it wasn’t just me that was looking for that. There was a real void out there – there was a gap in the aisles and how the aisles were presented and all that kind of stuff. So I think my persistence – I’m really grateful that it resulted in people receiving it the way it was intended. I don’t know that I was surprised but really grateful and mostly excited that people think the products work."