The haircare brand catering to Black women is branching out
Exciting news, pals. Tracee Ellis Ross has hinted that her haircare brand Pattern, which caters to and celebrates curly, coily, and tight textured hair, is set to branch out into new realms – specifically skincare.
Ross dropped the news in an interview with WWD in which she spoke about the brand which she launched in 2019 after ten years in the making and what is in store for the future. As well as plans to expand into international markets, Ross says she is hoping to move into skincare. “Not necessarily face first but body, which is very similar to hair in that you want to hydrate and protect your skin,” she says. The brand currently sells shampoos, conditioners, and styling products and tools including serums and combs.
In the interview, Ross also discussed the impact of this year’s coronavirus pandemic and social justice movement on the brand and her mission to celebrate “the joy, the beauty, the importance, and the power” of Black women and people of colour.
“It’s a part of my life’s work, along with expanding our equity and owning our own narrative,” Ross says. “Although (Pattern is) not a social justice organisation, we are inherently political, because the celebration of Blackness in the face of racism and systemic racism has a political and revolutionary nature to it.”
Following the murder of George Floyd and the uprisings against racism around the world, Ross said it would have felt “irresponsible and disrespectful to continue with business as usual because nothing was business as usual.” Since then, the brand has partnered with the African American Policy Forum, a social justice think tank, and donated to nonprofits Color of Change, Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
In the past, Ross has spoken out about the journey she’s been on with her natural hair, the resistance she faced when trying to launch Pattern, and the impact of a haircare industry which for so long didn’t cater to Black hair.
“During high school, I was very aware of the fact my natural hair was a societal standard I was pushing up against,” she told Dazed Beauty earlier this year. “Pattern is not just some sort of personal beauty journey, it’s an actual political journey of allowing a space to be ourselves.”