“It felt like I used to be taking the sun out of the box,” Tracee Ellis Ross said of her newest product, the Pattern Beauty blow dryer — which encompasses a latest hue for the brand, caramella. “It’s so freakin’ pretty.”

Two years within the making, it’s the corporate’s first heat tool.

The actress, activist and founding father of the hair company, which she introduced in 2019, said the launch reflects a “perfect evolution” of where the brand is today.

“It extends the story of what’s possible with our hair without damage, while leaning into texture, while leaning into your natural curl patterns, but finding latest and exciting ways to style it, to stretch it, to shape it and to chop down on drying time,” Ross went on.

Made for curly, coily and tight-textured hair, as with all her products, Ross looked to offer functionality and ease. Chatting over Zoom, she unveiled the device with glee, describing every element.

What was probably the most surprising or difficult aspect of its design and fabrication?

“You may’t get one until you’ve committed to it,” she said. “You’ve got to make all the selections based on samples, 3D models.”

To start, she had to judge the varied engines available in the marketplace. Weight was a key factor, as was design. The switches and cold shot button are easy to access, she explained, and the filter is detachable for cleansing. The dryer itself, all one uniform color — cord included, she happily noted — could be held in plenty of ways because it doesn’t get hot to the touch.

“Only the attachments do,” she added.

Attachable in two directions, the dryer comes with 4 attachments: a diffuser, wide-tooth comb, brush and concentrator nozzle. Available Monday on patternbeauty.com, the whole thing is priced at $189. She’s also introducing two latest products that complement the tool, a Heat Protectant Spray and Shine Spray, retailing for $20 each.

“You don’t have [to have] a brush in a single hand and a blow dryer in one other,” she said. “We are able to retool and rejigger the experience in order that it’s more user-friendly for the curly, coily and tight-textured customer.”

With a multichannel approach, that customer has been growing, she said: “The buyer that’s at Sephora is different from the patron at Ulta [Beauty], is different from who’s buying things at Amazon or going to patternbeauty.com. Every customer has a unique way that they hook up with their hair care. Some people need to be in a store…after which there’s some people who never go in stores.”

There are more launches to return at Pattern Beauty, she added, “other pieces to the warmth experience that we’ll be rolling out because the yr progresses.”