Throughout her decades-long career in TV, Tia Mowry has made women of color feel seen, heard and celebrated — but inside, she didn’t always feel that way herself.
As viewers admired a teenaged Mowry’s melanated skin and bouncy curls on Disney Channel’s Sister, Sister — in which she starred for six seasons from 1994 to 1999 alongside her twin sister, Tamera — she was grappling with insecurity over not meeting more Eurocentric beauty standards.
“My early beauty memories are not great ones,” Mowry, 45, said in Us Weekly‘s Colorful Like Us feature. “When I was in school, my hair was picked on. Kids would say, ‘Ew, greasy.’ It wasn’t necessarily something that I was embracing. As soon as I turned 21 and we hit the college years on Sister, Sister, I decided to straighten my hair because that’s what everyone was doing.”
It wasn’t until her late twenties that Mowry began to think differently about her look — especially after meeting Tracee Ellis Ross, who was known for rocking her natural coils on the series Girlfriends, when they worked together on a 2006 spinoff called The Game.
“When I first met Tracee, she told me how beautiful my hair was and how gorgeous my curls were,” Mowry recalled. “Her words of encouragement left a nice impact on me.”
By 2012, the natural hair movement was born, and Mowry embraced it. “I remember seeing this amazing community of diverse women with different textures of hair,” she said. “They were freeing themselves from straightening and chemicals. They were doing the big chop. They were putting their foot down, saying, ‘We define what beauty is.’ I followed this trend, and I’ve been on this amazing incredible journey since then.”
Still, Mowry found herself struggling to find creams, shampoos and conditioners that worked. So, in January 2023, she launched 4U by Tia, a line of non-toxic haircare products for all curl types. “I felt like there was a void,” Mowry said, explaining that she tapped a range of experts, influencers and everyday people to help her brainstorm diverse hair needs through a four-day workshop. The result was an assortment of sulfate and silicone-free items that are good for the environment and come with an affordable price tag.
For Mowry, it’s not just about slapping her name on the bottles. She uses the line daily on herself and her children — son Cree, 12, and daughter Cairo, 5, whom she shares with ex-husband Cory Hardrict. And she makes sure to preach as well as practice.
“I am constantly affirming my children,” she said. “I was just telling Cree how awesome and beautiful his hair is, and the same goes for Cairo. I always say, ‘Why are you so cute? Why are you so beautiful?’ I just think it’s really important for them to hear those things.”
