All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Gabrielle Union stars in BET’s Being Mary Jane, and her hair care line, Flawless by Gabrielle Union, launches at Ulta on April 16. Here the actress, 44, opens up about her relationship with her hair and why she won't let those beauty choices define her anymore.
When I was little, it felt like my hair was magic. It was the 1970s, and I had braided cornrows—now I’d call them Venus and Serena braids—with beads at the bottom. My hair made noise, and I thought I was really cool.
And then around age eight, I started noticing that there was this girl, this blond girl, with two superlong blond ponytails, and everyone was, like, gagging over these ponytails. I wanted that attention. I wanted to be seen too. I associated it with the hair, and I definitely didn’t have that hair. My mom thought I was too young for relaxers, but I wore her down and she took me to my cousin’s salon to get my first relaxer.
One thing they tell you about relaxer, or the “crainy crack,” as we called it, is that if you leave it on long enough, your hair’s going to be super straight—that silky white-girl hair. The other thing they tell you is to not to scratch your head before you get treated. Because everywhere you scratch basically leaves an open wound on your scalp that you’re putting acid onto. I was in tears because my scalp was burning, but when I felt how soft and silky my hair was, I was like, “It was worth it. It was all worth it. Yes.”
So that became my Saturday ritual every few weeks. What I never factored in was that I was a black girl in a mostly white school. I wasn’t the standard of beauty no matter how my hair looked; I would never be seen as the ideal. It was a never-ending cycle of feeling like if I could just get my hair “right,” I could be as pretty as the other girls. That mind-set carried through middle school and high school, as I constantly experimented with different styles—I once even dipped my bangs in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide. I never quite got what I was looking for, but I damaged my hair…a lot.
When I started in Hollywood, during my senior year at UCLA, a whole new set of hair problems showed up. I realized very quickly that there were many people in hair and makeup trailers who were totally unqualified to do my hair. Hairstylists used Aqua Net–like hairspray with crazy amounts of alcohol, which caused chunks of my hair to literally come off on a styling tool. I was like a guinea pig on set, and I didn’t yet have enough power to request a stylist who I actually wanted to touch my hair. It got to the point that I would pay to have my hair done before I got to work and pray they didn’t screw it up.
Over time I also got introduced to wearing weaves and extensions, and the immediate difference in the amount of attention I got was palpable. I felt like the longer my hair, the more attractive I was in the audition rooms. Later, in my thirties, I became more invested in making sure the hair was right for the character, not just feeding my own low self-esteem. I realized that I was never going to have a really great hair day if I didn’t do the work on myself internally to figure out what makes me happy.
It’s been over 20 years of my hair being used and abused, first by myself, then by those who didn’t know what they were doing. But I’ve finally gotten to a place of self-acceptance and recognizing that my natural hair is beautiful—and so is whatever weave I may wear. I’m perfectly happy rocking an Afro puff, my French braids, Senegalese twists, a faux-hawk, or an ombré wig, or heat-styling my natural hair with extensions, like in the photo above. And that makes me a happy person in my life.
—as told to Abby Gardner
