March 23 (UPI) -- Tracee Ellis Ross says her sitcom Girlfriends helped inspire her hair care line.
The 48-year-old actress and singer discussed on Monday's episode of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon how her Pattern Beauty hair care line was 10 years in the making.
Ross played Joan Clayton on Girlfriends, which had an eight-season run on UPN/The CW from 2000 to 2008. She launched Pattern Beauty, a hair care line for curly, coily and tight-textured hair, in 2019.
On The Tonight Show, Ross said managing the line is a lot of work but "so much fun."
"It was 10 years in the making," the star said. "It started out for me because I couldn't find products and wasn't seeing my natural beauty mirrored back to me in the world."
"When I got on Girlfriends, I realized that I was not the only one. There were so many people who were looking for products that actually met their hair where it was and how it grows out of our head," she added.
Ross said she tried to get the line made for 10 years before finally creating it herself.
"It's been the most rewarding thing to be a CEO and founder," she said. "You know what? I'm a singer and I'm a CEO. I'm both."
As an actress, Ross, the daughter of singer Diana Ross, also plays Dr. Rainbow "Bow" Johnson on Black-ish and Mixed-ish. She will narrate The Runaway Bunny, an animated adaptation of the Margaret Wise Brown children's book, for HBO Max.
"I thought, what a great opportunity for me to do something that my nieces and nephews could actually watch," Ross said. "And a sweet story about unconditional love -- and then they asked me to sing the lullaby, which was so exciting for me and I loved it."
The Runaway Bunny premieres Thursday on HBO Max.
