Actress Kat Graham recently got candid about her journey to embrace her natural hair. During an Aug. 12 feature in Vogue’s Beauty Secret series, the “Honey 2” star found herself in tears as she talked about her go-to beauty regimen and her struggles to love her natural locs.
In the video, the 30-year-old credited her hairstylist, Rachel Lee, for inspiring her to wear her natural hair during the quarantine. Like many, Graham was left with the task of styling her hair while the nation was encouraged to stay home and social distance.
In the video, the actress revealed that her mother, who is of Polish and Russian descent, gave up on trying to comb her hair when she was about 9 years old. As a result, Graham found herself at the beauty salon frequently.
The star also revealed that because she became a performer as a teenager, she was used to the glam life and regularly wore her hair in cornrows or various wigs. However, around minute 4, as Graham showed off the leave-in conditioner that she had been using on her hair, the actress began to get visibly emotional. “Right before quarantine, I had a week of press to do. We didn’t know what was happening. It was just flights were getting canceled, borders were getting closed, and why am I crying over conditioner?” the actress explained.
Graham pushed through the tears saying, “Rachel gave me this, and she said, ‘I want you to start to use this on your hair.’ And I was like ‘Fine.’ You know, I get a bunch of products all the time. And I — it was almost like she knew I was going to be on my own — and I’ve never had to be on my own with my hair.” Her stylist seemingly offered the actress the product knowing that she would be on her own to manage her hair and wanted to make the process as smooth as possible. “This was the product that really helped me figure out that my hair will work with me if I don’t give up on it.”
Later on in the video, Graham expressed that while “the African-Afro textured” hair isn’t something that Hollywood has necessarily embraced, she still “hopes that one day I can play a character that I actually look like.” The actress expressed that she had always had a difficult time wearing lace front wigs for previous gigs due to the damage those styles did to her natural hair.
“So for ‘Vampire Diaries’ I’d worn a lace front for many years. So the glue, and the wig clips, and the pulling, and the braids were hard on my hair,” the actress explained. “I am so done. I just want to have a master ’fro.”
The actress spoke about other beauty-related topics, including how she still finds leftover makeup on her skin despite cleaning her face the night before. Check out the clip from the series below.