Have you seen a hairstyle you love, either on social media or in person, but weren’t able to find out who the hairstylist was, how much it cost, or where the salon was located? I am sure some of us have scrolled through Instagram searching for where we could obtain the hairstyle we saw or hesitated to awkwardly approach someone to ask them about their hair. As black women, our hair offers so much versatility and we are always looking for our next style.
Luckily, all your hair troubles will be over soon thanks to Tress. Tress is a hair inspiration app geared towards black women all around the world to help them get all the answers to their hair questions. It was created by three African software developers, Priscilla Hazel, Esther Olatunde, and Cassandra Sarfo. I sat down with co-founder Priscilla Hazel and she gave me some insight of how it all started.
Patricia Hazel said, “One of the co-founders saw a hairstyle with weave that she wanted to do and she didn’t know which weave was used for the hair. It’s difficult to know even if you see something similar online, you don’t know the specific name of it. She searched around and asked a couple of us…. obviously none of us knew. So, she made us start thinking…we do this all the time. We see people walking on the street, and we ask them ‘Hey who did your hair.’ We do it all the time as black women.”
The app creates a space for black women to share hair ideas and offers tips and a Q&A section on a range of hair types including natural, relaxed, locs, weave, braids, and more!
Priscilla revealed more about the app as she continued, “The idea was just take a picture of your hair, upload it to your profile, and tell us who did it, which products you used, and how much it costs. People could like, comment, and ask you questions about your hair. That was the very first version of the app. It was going very well and then we started getting so many emails about people asking us how to take care of their hair. So, we did a lot of research to answer people’s questions. We figured there were so many articles and videos out there that addressed people’s questions, so we started posting them and created the tips and Q&A section.”
Tress has been available on Google Play since last year, but will be launching on iOS on Saturday, February 25, making it available to millions of iOS users. In addition to the launch, Tress will have a free launch event at Coze Event Space in Atlanta on Saturday, February 25, from 2 P.M – 4 P.M. There will be guest speakers there to answer any hair related questions you may have.
“The main focus is not just going to be on the launch. It’ll be a time for black women to discuss hair and ask questions. There’s also going to be a doctor who’s going to talk about how your health affects your hair. It’s going to be really interesting,” Priscilla added.
Her Campus GSU will be in attendance at tomorrow’s event. We hope to see you all there!
Download Tress today on Google Play!