Loose and natural
Tracee Ellis Ross wasn’t always celebrated for her thick mane of big, loose curls.
She recalls being approached at the Essence Music Festival when she was starring in the series “Girlfriends,” her first leading role. “I remember someone saying ‘Girl, you’re on TV. Why don’t you get your hair done?’ And I was like, ‘This is the way God did my hair.’ ”
As a mixed-race woman, the “black-ish” star acknowledges that her hair texture may have given her more freedom than other black women in the industry, but she still struggled to find her own style.
“I [logged] hours in the trenches with my hair, trying for years to beat it into submission so I could look sexy and be considered beautiful.”
She initially pushed to wear her hair in its curly state on“Girlfriends.” The style eventually became a distinctive part of her character, Joan, but even on a TV show starring four black women, she found there weren’t stylists on set who knew how to work with her natural hair. So she did it herself, waking up three hours before call time each shoot day to ensure her hair looked good on TV.
Ross now finds herself envied for her voluminous locks. But one particular meme showing a black girl crying in the shower with the caption: “That moment you realize you don’t have Tracee Ellis Ross’ hair,” upset her.
“There is nothing in me that wanted anything about my hair or who I am to make someone feel bad about themselves,” she said. “If anything, I would want my hair to inspire someone to figure out what their hair could do because that was the journey I had been on.”