Tati Gabrielle Opens Up About Her Onscreen Hair Journey

Throughout her work, Tati Gabrielle's mission is to always "empower people to be their best self" — her latest beauty endeavor embraces that very message.

As the new brand ambassador for Göt2B, the You actress opened up to PEOPLE exclusively about experimenting with her style and fostering hair representation on screen through her own journey.

"I know that I change my hair and my look all the time, but I didn't realize that people had taken notice to that," Gabrielle says on why her partnership with the global hairstyling and color brand is a "really big honor."

"Göt2b's message is to be whoever you want to be. That is very much my motto when it comes to me getting dressed. It's very much me coming into a new version of myself," she adds on her style philosophy.

Currently Gabrielle's go-to style is her "surfer waves," a reflection of her latest ocean-centric pastime.

She cares for "resilient" hair, which she describes as short and thick, with the Göt2B Be Twisted collection and a detangling brush from Felicia Leatherwood.

A fan of color (the 26-year-old star remembers experimenting with two-toned hair in high school), the Göt2B Color Pöp Masks, conditioning masks that come in six vibrant hues for a bold look, are her "favorite thing of life" too.

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Gabrielle, who is an advocate for mental health awareness, encourages others to "be whoever they want to be," a mindset that has found itself in her trademark beauty look: dotted eye makeup.

"I don't wear a lot of makeup [so] I always just look for little things," she shares of her go-to style. "I think that I was always drawn to a tribal-looking makeup aesthetic."

Gabrielle doesn't hold back in directing her own narrative in Hollywood, especially when it pertains to her hair journey.

It first started on the set of the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. For her role as Prudence, Gabrielle found herself having to perfect her own finger waves for two years, which eventually proved "to be difficult" because of the time she spent balancing her work in front of and behind the cameras.

"What could take a hairstylist maybe 20 minutes to do my whole head, it took me an hour [to an] hour and a half. I was having to wake up earlier than everybody else to do my own hair. It was just a lot," the You star tells PEOPLE. "I went to the point of being like, 'OK, this isn't fair.'"

"I felt like I should say something so that other people later on don't have to experience this," she says she remembers thinking.

Gabrielle then made the decision to shave her head during the show's second season to alleviate the expectations.

Another defining moment for the star? Filming Uncharted, during which she was faced with another beauty roadblock.

For her role as Jo Braddock, Gabrielle resorted to a wig, which she says "most people actually don't know" she was wearing, due to unrealistic requests to bleach her hair.

"I was in back-and-forth conversations with production about them wanting to dye my hair blonde. I was trying to explain to them, 'I have black hair. You can't bleach my head every other week — you will have no hair to film with by the end,'" she remembers saying.

Through making these executive beauty decisions on set, Gabrielle learned the value of both embracing her natural hair and standing her ground, which she hopes to pass on to her fans.

"That's not taking away from anybody. It's just taking care of you," she says, realizing that "people-pleasing or trying to be too much of a team player always cost me."

Whether she's building new narratives in the beauty world or advocating for a younger generation across a spectrum of important issues — that includes empowering women she believes "are going to be the ones to save this world" — Gabrielle defiantly stands by a unifying message: "Just make your presence known and stand strong in that."

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