As an avid beauty shopper, Tracee Ellis Ross understands the marketing strategy of telling people they have a problem and then providing the solution to fix it. That doesn’t mean she agrees with it.

“When I feel good about myself, I actually buy more,” she said. “Particularly when it comes to the Black customer, that in and of itself is the problematic equation. Telling Black customers that their hair was a problem, and that you needed ‘this’ to fix it, absolutely did not work for me.” She set out to solve that equation in a different way through PATTERN Beauty. The hair care brand, launched in 2019, was a decade in the making.

Ross, an award-winning actor and producer in addition to CEO and founder of PATTERN Beauty, joined Sheena Butler-Young, senior correspondent with The Business of Fashion, onstage during NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show. The conversation explored the rise of PATTERN Beauty as a beauty brand rather than in-name-only celebrity brand, one that just happens to have a founder with a different high-profile “day job.” Ross is most recognized for roles in the TV shows “Girlfriends” and “Black-ish.”

“Human beings do multiple things, and have multiple interests, and can be incredibly smart in many different areas,” Ross said. She was educated at Brown University, she’s smart, “and I do naturally have business acumen. I’m not going to be afraid to say that because I’m an actor.”

The brand was born out of a need, she said, a “blank space” in a beauty industry that was “not spending the time, the money, the attention, or even acknowledging the importance of masses of people — 65% to 75%  of the global community — that needed products not only that worked and were effective, but that were not harmful, and also were beautiful and packaged well and elevated, and that our content was going to make you feel joyous and celebratory about yourself and your hair.” Ross founded the company to create products that supported hair the way it grew out of the head.

Though PATTERN Beauty’s content and marketing is based in the celebration of Black beauty, its products are for anyone with curly, coily and tight-textured hair. In addition to her statistic about the global community that fits into this category, Ross shared that the total addressable market for textured hair products in the United States is estimated at over $31 billion.

“I don’t believe hair has a gender or a race,” Ross said, and she’s fascinated that the market for Black hair care is considered “niche.”

In addition to the lost opportunity from a money-making perspective, there’s also the purpose piece: the great many people who are not being “celebrated, empowered and serviced, that deserve all of those things like everybody else.”

PATTERN Beauty launched with seven products, one retail partner and direct-to-consumer. There are now 11 retail partners and more than 50 products, including three that plug into the wall: a steamer, a blow dryer and a three-in-one interchangeable curling iron.

“All of that started with about three people around a table,” she said. Ross landed her first retail partner before she had a business partner; choosing the right one was a challenge. She went with Ulta Beauty, “because Ulta was able to guarantee a larger amount of doors, a better exclusivity deal, and we were able to have a relationship where I was working directly with (then-CEO) Mary Dillon at the time, and build my confidence as a CEO and a founder. It is, and has been from the beginning, just a wonderful partnership.”

Ross admitted that one of her biggest assets is to know when she doesn’t know something — and to know who to ask. PATTERN Beauty partners with consumer products house Beach House Group, which now has “about 47” employees designated solely to the brand.

Ross remains fully engaged from a creative and visionary aspect, considering herself an intentional, purposeful and creative leader. She has a co-CEO in Christiane Pendarvis.

“My business acumen is very based on my creativity,” she said. “I am an artist, first and foremost.”

These days, she’s looking for those who are team players, those who understand the full picture of what PATTERN Beauty aims to accomplish, and those who are experts in their field. “Bringing in the right people,” she said, “has been extraordinary.”

Source: NRF blog posts