The Journalist Who Turned Her Hair Journey Into Honest Content Black Women Actually Needed
- Jul 23
- 4 min read
Rosemarie Cunningham will be the first to tell you she’s not your average hair girlie. Yes, her hair is long and healthy. Yes, her content is aesthetic. But the moment she opens her mouth, you realize quickly — this woman came from a newsroom, and she has never quite left it.
Before she became one of the most trusted voices in the Black hair space, Rosemarie was a reporter and anchor at Forbes, hosting New Money on ForbesTV and interviewing some of the most compelling names in business and culture. She also launched Then They Rose, her own podcast celebrating people who overcame adversity to reach greatness. Journalism was never just a job for her. It was a way of seeing the world — and more importantly, a commitment to telling the truth.
That commitment is exactly what she brought with her when she pivoted to hair content. And in a space crowded with sponsorships, soft reviews, and miracle claims, it has made all the difference.
She’s Done It Twice — And She’ll Tell You Exactly How
Waist-length hair is the kind of goal that gets whispered about in comment sections like it’s a myth. Rosemarie has achieved it not once, but twice. And when you ask her how, she doesn’t reach for a product name or a trending method. The one word she’ll say over and over again? Strict.
The analogy lands because it’s true. We understand that getting a degree takes years of discipline. That getting in shape requires sustained effort. Hair, she argues, is no different — we just haven’t been taught to treat it that way.
Her early journey looked like most people’s: too much daily manipulation, an obsession with growth over retention, a stint as a “straight natural” that left her with serious heat damage. The most painful lesson came in 2022, when a bad protein treatment forced her to cut her hair from waist length all the way to her shoulders. It was a setback that would have broken a lot of women’s spirits. For Rosemarie, it became data.
The Framework She Built — and Named Herself
What separates Rosemarie’s approach from the noise is that she didn’t just figure out what works — she built a system around it. She calls them length retention phases and length maintenance phases, a framework she coined herself and one that finally helped everything click.
During a retention phase, the routine is non-negotiable. Right now that looks like two braids worn for two weeks at a time, washing and styling only twice a month, and a strict list of things she simply doesn’t do: no silk presses, no exposed ends, no ponytails. “The dreaded ponytail gap always leads to more hair being cut off than it would be otherwise,” she explains. These phases can last anywhere from six months to two years.
During a maintenance phase, she gives herself grace. She enjoys her hair fully, accepts that some breakage will happen, and doesn’t beat herself up about it. The key is knowing which phase she’s in — and not constantly jumping between them.
Currently, she is deep in a retention phase. It is, by her own admission, very strict and very boring. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
What She Actually Uses
Rosemarie isn’t an ingredient obsessive — a stance she’ll own even when it raises eyebrows in the natural hair space. A good product is a good product, full stop.
She also has a take that’s been waking the girls up online: stop obsessing over hair porosity and start paying attention to strand thickness. A TikTok she made about why she’d never get braids — citing her fine strands — sparked a conversation that had clearly been building for years.
The Trust She Refuses to Trade
Ask Rosemarie what her audience connects to most and she doesn’t hesitate. It’s sincerity. She does unsponsored reviews. She gives honest feedback even when a brand sends her product. She has knowingly passed on partnerships because her reviews don’t always go the way brands would like.
In this market, that kind of honesty is rare currency. Because the audience Rosemarie speaks to isn’t niche — it’s one of the most powerful and most underserved in all of beauty. Black women outspend nearly everyone on hair, are far more likely to walk away from the shelf dissatisfied, and still see only a sliver of the industry’s revenue flow back to Black-owned brands. When the numbers look like this, a trusted voice isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the whole game.
Rosemarie doesn’t need a consulting firm to tell her any of this. She hears it in her comment section every day — women who have spent years and thousands of dollars chasing results that never came, asking her which reviews they can actually believe. Her answer has never changed.
It tracks. Because when you’ve spent your career trying to get as close to the truth as possible, you don’t stop doing that just because the camera angle changed.
A New Movement — and Something Coming
Rosemarie is paying close attention to what’s happening in the culture right now, and she likes what she sees. The big chops. The weaves coming out. Women learning to love their own hair more and more in 2026.
Underneath all the frameworks and product favorites is something much simpler — a girl who spent years looking for guidance she couldn’t quite find.
As for what’s next — she’s keeping that close for now. But she did mention, with a knowing smile, that BBF may be hearing from her again soon about something she’s building on her own.
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