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We love that Taraji P. Henson has been flexing her natural hair in the past year!

Even better? She’s got it on deck on the newest cover of Essence Magazine…and baby is it glorious. As their March/April cover girl, the Empire star looked stunning in this perfectly tailored Sergio Hudson red suit, perfect nude lip and neutral shadowed eye. Oh, and who can forget those perfectly-shaped brows!

SLAY!

But it’s her honey-brown natural tresses that are seriously speaking to us! We just love this look on her!

Taraji on Essence March/April Cover

Source: Essence / Essence

As we previously reported, the Oscar nominee recently launched her hair care line TpH by TARAJI. The Target exclusive natural hair collection features 18 products that range from hair milk to scalp scrubs.

Essence editors asked Henson how long she had been working on this line, to which she answered: “since the 90s.”

“It’s something I’ve been working on since I started wearing a weave back in the 1990’s. I’m from D.C. We were very serious about our hair—I used to do $20 roller sets in college. That was my McDonald’s money—and I’ve found a solution to a real problem. When I first started getting weaves, I loved my hair, but I just wanted to preserve it because I heard these stories about people losing their edges and your hair thinning out from being in the industry,” she said.

Adding that she wanted to create tools for women that would focus on the health of their scalp.

“Also because I have very dense hair, and I was like, Okay, so now I have a problem because I can wash the weave really well and that’ll be clean, but how do I penetrate the weft and get down to the scalp? I know that a lot of women think that just because they have an install that their hair is protected and it’s healthy. You have to clean your scalp first but think about it. If you had dense hair and it’s a scalp product that you’re using, by the time it gets to your root—because I turn into a Chia Pet when my hair gets wet—it’s harder to get to the scalp. So that’s where the tri touch applicator we developed for my line comes in. That’s when I said, “Wow, this is going to be great, not only for people who have installs but also for people who have really thick, dense hair, like the 4C curly girls.”

 

 

On her first experiences with entrepreneurship:

“Before I booked Baby Boy, I took a community college class on how to make candles, and I turned it into a business. It was called Light My Fire, and I would make candles for my friends who were lucky enough to be booked on television shows. Paula Jai Parker—if you’re out there, girl—I love you, because she was my first client. She bought like $500 worth of candles because she gave them as gifts to her cast and crew. And, girl, I love you, honey. Do you know that paid my rent that month that year? [Laughs] And it was Christmas and my baby had gifts under the tree.”

On having a good time while almost hitting 50-years-old:

“It’s getting harder nowadays. Look at where we are. It doesn’t help my anxiety and depression. It’s a struggle. It’s like after a certain age, the rose-colored glasses come off. And this is the thing I want to really, really discuss and tackle. Women, I know we all are enamored and we’re in love with how Black don’t crack, and we all love the youthfulness, and yes, I’m pushing 50 and we that bitch and all of that. Yes, that’s great, but let’s be real. There are things that happen to us physically and we get so caught up in the aesthetics that we really never talk about perimenopause, menopause. And how that directly affects you mentally. Depression, lows and you not knowing where this s–t is coming from. Yes, we look good, but I had to say something.”

 

You just gotta love you some Taraji!

Read her March/April Essence cover story in its entirety here

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For 2024’s iteration of MadameNoire and HelloBeautiful’s annual series Women to Know, we knew we wanted to celebrate the people who help make the joys of film and television possible. To create art is to create magic. This year, we spotlight Hollywood Executive’s changing the face of cinema.