Meet the 1st Black beauty brand to work with Angel Reese

The story behind Cruz Textures

Angel Reese is an undeniable star. The WNBA rookie star forward for the Chicago Sky started her latest birthday at practice before flying to New York to attend her first Met Gala.

Reese is not the typical women’s basketball player. She announced her decision to enter the WNBA Draft in a Vogue feature and high-fashion photo shoot. Her attendance at this year’s Met Gala made her the second WNBA player to ever attend the esteemed event after Brittney Griner attended last year.


She has brand deals with Reebok, Airbnb, Beats by Dre, PlayStation, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Tampax, Topps, ZOA Energy, Starry, Mielle Organics, SI Swimsuit, Caktus, Campus Ink, Raising Cane’s, Intuit Turbo Tax, JanSport, Bose and Sonic — among other partnerships. At the start of her advertising surge, however, was Cruz Textures, a Black-owned hair business that specializes in providing top-of-the-line bundles.

Recently, Cruz Textures founder and owner Ashtyn spoke to rolling out about her company and landing Reese as an ambassador.


What is Cruz Textures?

I’m very rooted in my faith.

This is something that I prayed about, and I got the go-ahead from the good man above. I knew this was where I needed to go with this business. It’s something I needed to bring to the economy, to the rest of the world — but do it my way, the Cruz way, which is a way of luxury but still gives access to everyone to be able to have it.

It’s luxury hair from the moment you get on our website to the message you’ve received the hair in the mail all the way until the install. It’s something we take pride in. I am very blessed to be able to provide this product to the market.

Where did Cruz come from?

Cruz means cross in the Spanish language. It’s a way I keep my faith very rooted and involved in my business. Because that’s something I don’t play around with.

What was it like for you to provide branding opportunities to Black female athletes like Angel Reese?

It means the absolute world. It’s an honor for me to be able to do that. My Number 1 goal before I launched Cruz Textures was to have a very strong brand ambassador program.

When you look at women hoopers and partnerships they have with beauty businesses, it’s very small and few [and far] between … [and with us], their hair is going to look good at the beginning to the end of the game.

We first pitched to Lexie Brown — who’s with the L.A. Sparks — and she’s been very pivotal in our program.

Soon after, we went to Angel Reese, who was playing for LSU at the time — and she had our raw Indian hair in when they won the national championship. It’s one of our popular textures, especially when it gets hot outside because the curls are for the girls.

When she won the national championship, Cruz Textures was flooded, and everyone wanted the Angel Reese loose curls. She was so thankful, a great person to work with and was outstanding [altogether].

We also work with coach Sydney Carter from the University of Texas basketball.

A rolling out cover alum.

Yes, and she has loved the Cruz Textures product. She shows our hair during interviews, and it has definitely taken off …

On the sports media side, Sheena Quick has been another great ambassador for us.

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