Black-ish star, Tracee Ellis Ross, has become an unintentional beauty icon over the course of her career. As the daughter of pop legend and natural-hair pioneer, Diana Ross, she was born with ready-made bounce and volume – but it wasn’t always seen as a blessing.
Like many women of colour around the world, the actress struggled throughout her youth with the relationship between her hair, her happiness, and her identity. “Growing up, there just were not a lot of examples in media and entertainment of women that wore their hair naturally,” she told Vogue US. “I could chronicle my journey of self-love and self-acceptance through my journey with my hair.”
Now, over two decades later, and years of experimenting with relaxers and blow-outs, the former Girlfriends star is all about embracing her natural hair. She’s harnessing that self-love and bottling it up into her new adventure, ‘Pattern’, a haircare range designed to empower your natural curl pattern and let them be free.
Recently, Tracee took Vogue through her exact hair routine, from shower to blow-dry, and we couldn’t help but soak up all her amazing tips and tricks.
Step-by-step, here’s how Tracee Ellis Ross develops her curls to achieve ‘happy joyful hair.’
Step 1: Shampoo & condition
Tracee’s routine starts in the shower, using the Pattern Beauty Hydrating Shampoo which is suitable for ‘curlies, coilies and tight textures’, followed by the Pattern Beauty Medium Conditioner which is best suited for ‘curlies.’
She then brushes through her wet hair with a shower brush, which she told Byrdie has been a total “game-changer.”
Step 2: Add a leave-in conditioner
Fresh out of the shower, Tracee works leave-in conditioner through her curls, calling Pattern’s Leave-In Conditioner “the Holy Grail of all Holy Grails.” She uses an entire palm full of product. Pattern is only sold in large bottles as textured hair requires much more product than other hair types.
Tracee squeezes the product into her curls to ensure each strand is coated. And her curls aren’t the only way she’s keeping it natural, “You can see my little greys coming in. I’m not afraid of any grey!”
Step 3: Wrap curls in a towel
Next, Tracee sweeps her hair back and gently wraps a towel around it as to not disturb the curls too much.
She leaves the towel on for a few minutes while she starts her skincare routine (which is just as mesmerising and extensive).
Step 4: Secure with a clip
Once her skin is prepped, she unwraps her hair, grabs her hair from the ends, and clips it up in a pile on her head with a big Pattern claw clip. She leaves this in while she moves onto even more skincare! “Some people spend time putting on makeup, I spend time hydrating my skin!”
If pieces fall out, she’s not fussed. She’s all about letting her hair be free and fall where it may.
Step 5: Blow-dry using a diffuser
To achieve the ‘fluffy volume’ she loves, Tracee uses the Dyson Supersonic hair dryer with a diffuser.
“For me personally I don’t like when it’s all uniform.” Tracee says as she shows us all the different curl patterns throughout her hair. “This guy lately does not want to curl,” she says as she tugs on a looser strand. “So I’m just letting it be!”
Step 6: Leave the curls to cool
Once fully dry, Tracee lets her hair be, emphasising the importance of allowing her hair to cool so the cuticle can fully close and her curls stay in tact.
Step 6: Style with serum
The last step to Tracee’s happy, joyful hair tutorial is running Pattern hair serum through her curls.
She scrunches the serum through the ends of her curls to help maintain the shape throughout the day and brave any weather that may come her way.
Do you have textured hair? How do you style your hair?
The hair as you have the culry style can really make the difference by using the conditioner then drying it could make your hair so nice I am loving it .. for hair loss treatment you can visit Islamabad hair transplant
Hair so thick it must take ages to dry
I’m not minding a few greys either