Issa celebration, ladies! February has arrived to the year via black car service and it's ready to swag surf on the necks of the culture. The beauty of it all comes in seeing most businesses adapt to a more inclusive marketing outreach, but the beauty, beauty of it, is seeing black businesses celebrating us as loud and unapologetically as possible.
And y'all know how much we love supporting our black queens around here, so when we saw the latest promo for one of our favorite hair lines, Pattern Beauty, we completely lost our wigs.
Why? Because it was beautifully black AF.
In celebration of the launch of their newest collection, which consists of two new products: a hair mask and scalp treatment, the haircare juggernaut released a full visual, complete with black embracing, customary cultural screenshots, and so much more to have the blackity black black cup runneth over with happiness. The cinematic shots, the inclusion, the rawness, and most of all, the approach to a life and upbringing that only we understand is almost too much to handle.
It also comes complete with community shots from real customers, and a signature slogan, #HonorYourPattern, to welcome and encompass all hair types from 3B to 4C.
If you're unfamiliar, Pattern Beauty was founded by Tracee Ellis Ross, a hair icon of this generation. Beyond its very hair-famous founder, Pattern Beauty is legit, with their backstory detailing how they are, and plan to be, an ally for us naturals. Ross even detailed her entire journey, from Girlfriends to Pattern Beauty, in a personalized blog post.
On why she created the visual to roll out the new products, she tells O Magazine:
"I think art plays a big part in the changing of people's hearts and minds. I think storytelling is a huge part of that. Being transparent and honest about the experience of discrimination is a big part of changing the culture. And we know that culture then starts to influence policy."
And each product in the new line is carefully crafted with us--and only us--in mind. The products are:
Pattern Beauty Definition & Curl Elongation Mask
Pattern Beauty
Ross explains:
"In a nod to ancestral home remedies, which is so much of what Pattern is about, is this idea that all of us with curly, coily, and tightly textured hair have become our own best experts. We come from a legacy of self-care that is haircare. And so one of the new products is an innovative hair mask that combines fermented rice water and moringa oil—two time-honored hair treatments that have been formulated in a modern way. And the beauty of it is that it aids in length retention. For so many of us with curly hair, shrinkage is an issue."
Pattern Beauty Invigorate & Cool Scalp Serum
Pattern Beauty
She continues:
"[The second product] is a scalp treatment, which has rosemary and lavender oils. It's a beautiful way to hydrate the roots of your hair, which we know is what promotes hair growth. It also has a cooling and beautiful smell that stimulates the scalp. It was a really exciting process. We've moved from rock your pattern to style your pattern to honor your pattern."
Queen.
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Click here to watch the entire promo video.
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Featured image by Pattern Beauty/Instagram
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak