The Prime Video heartthrob just became the face of the brand’s new Hot Curl Summer campaign, proof that calling him “your campus crush” is less a marketing stretch than a job description.
A guy is thirty minutes from a party, his hair gone flat from a nap he swore he wouldn’t take, when a friend hands him a stash of product instead of a lecture. That’s the entire plot of “Hot Curl Summer, Verified,” the anthem video TRESemmé dropped on July 22nd to launch its expanded Bouncy Curls Collection. Who hasn’t begged a friend for product twenty minutes before a rideshare arrives? If the scenario sounds like it was lifted from a group chat, that’s probably the point.
The guy in question is Belmont Cameli, and TRESemmé’s own campaign copy introduces him as “your favorite campus crush,” a label that would read as a stretch for most 28-year-olds if Cameli didn’t currently spend his workdays on one. He plays Garrett Graham, the NHL-bound hockey captain at the center of Prime Video’s “Off Campus,” a role he’s set to reprise for a second season in a show already drawing comparisons to the hockey-romance series “Heated Rivalry.”
The nickname, it seems, isn’t really a marketing flourish. Prime Video wrote it into his call sheet first, and the timing tracks: the part arrived on the heels of a career lull Cameli has attributed to the industry’s strike years, one that ended when he booked the horror adaptation “Until Dawn” and Robert De Niro’s “The Alto Knights” ahead of landing this role.
Bad hair day. One phone call from disaster. Then, somehow, not.
That’s the arc of the ad itself, and it tracks with what Cameli has said about his own routine off camera. On the “Off Campus” set, his hairstylist reportedly clips and diffuses his curls into the gelled, clean-shaven look Garrett Graham needs to read as a college athlete. Off set, by his own account, it’s cream, mousse, and out the door. “Having curly hair can be complicated,” he’s admitted, which tracks: this is a man who’s cycled through a mullet phase and a slicked-back look he now leaves to professionals.
TRESemmé’s three-step fix, defining cream first, then mousse for lift, then Air Dry Foam to hold it, amounts to Cameli admitting the effortless look was never actually effortless. “I’ve definitely noticed the internet talking about my hair a lot lately; I’ve seen all your edits!” he said, laughing, when the campaign was announced. “The last thing I want is a high-maintenance routine,” he added. “It resets your vibe and confidence for the day, especially a hot one.”
Whether that counts as an endorsement or a confession probably depends on how many hours you’ve personally spent on CurlTok hunting for someone with his exact 2B-3B pattern.
The Chemistry Behind the Confidence
TRESemmé’s lead hairstylist, Justine Marjan, whose client list has included Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Chrissy Teigen, is the one translating that on-screen routine into something that survives an actual subway platform in August. Her diagnosis of the category rings true to anyone who has ever bought the wrong mousse: curls have long been stuck choosing between crunch and collapse, since so few lightweight formulas hold their shape and stay soft at once.
“A huge complaint I often hear from my curly-haired clients is that products either leave their hair crunchy or completely weigh it down,” she said. Her verdict on the new formulas, which lean on a peptide blend for hold, was blunt. “The Bouncy Curls Collection completely changes the game,” she said. Big claim, and perhaps an easy one to make before actual July humidity gets a vote. Still, I’d guess plenty of 2B-3B readers have heard that promise before and stayed skeptical until they tried it themselves.
Built By the People Who’ll Actually Wear It
To its credit, TRESemmé didn’t develop this expansion in a vacuum. A group the brand calls its Curl Collective, curl-focused creators including Valeria Luna, Riley Arrigo, Ashtin Sanchez, Claire Almond and Cheyenne Henriques, tested the formulas before any of it reached a shelf. Yoni Klein, TRESemmé North America’s head of marketing at Unilever, frames the whole expansion as a direct answer to what that group kept flagging: existing formulas worked fine on looser waves and turned heavy on tighter 2B-3B texture.
“This launch was inspired by listening to the unmet needs of the wavy hair community,” he said, adding that the goal was giving people “new ways to style, define, and hold their curls with ease.” It’s a familiar sentence for any launch season, though the actual list of testers behind this one gives it a little more weight than usual.
Where to Find the Proof
For anyone who wants the campaign in person, TRESemmé is hosting something called the Bounce Summer Club at Domino Park in Brooklyn on August 7th and 8th, presumably the most humidity-tested stretch of waterfront in the borough that particular weekend. Online, the ask is simpler: post a routine, tag it #HotCurlSummer, and let Cameli’s own before-and-afters do the rest of the convincing through the season.
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As for the products themselves, the full lineup lands at mass retailers now, and nothing in it breaks eight dollars.
- Defining Cream ($7.99, 9 fl oz): the lightweight, peptide-laced base of the whole routine
- Defining Mousse ($7.99, 10.5 oz): volume and sculpt, minus the crunch
- Air Dry Foam ($7.99, 7.5 fl oz): curl enhancement with zero heat required
- Multi-Tasking Hair Mask ($7.99, 8 fl oz): frizz and humidity defense in one step
- Cream Jelly ($7.99, 8 fl oz): all-day definition that stays touchable
- Bi-Phase Oil Mist ($7.99, 3.3 fl oz): a shine boost for the very end of the routine
- Leave-In Refresher ($7.99, 6.7 fl oz): a between-wash reset
- Layering Hairspray ($7.99, 10 fl oz): flexible hold that finishes the look
- Shampoo & Conditioner ($4.49 to $5.99, 16.5 to 28 fl oz): the actual first step, heat protection included
None of this means Cameli’s curls were ever in genuine danger on any given morning. The ad was never really about him. It’s about convincing anyone who has cried at a diffuser at seven in the morning that the gap between disaster and defined might come down to three products and a little patience. Given how much of “Hot Curl Summer” already runs on other people’s before-and-afters, that argument may end up making itself.