by Rumbie Mutsiwa believes in the transformative power of hair. As a hairdresser specializing in curly, wavy and afro hair, she has seen a lot of distressed looking clients come into her Sydney salon, Rumbie & Co. When they leave, she says: “Their eyes have been opened and they see themselves and feel good about it. their hair for the first time.”
Her knowledge of curly and afro hair has seen her take on an educational role backstage at Australian fashion week, where expertise is sometimes lacking. “What burns my heart is models [with curly hair] come in and their hair is barely touched,” she says. “So they don’t feel confident walking the runway.”
In recognition of her work in the industry, Zimbabwean-born Mutsiwa was last week named one of Australia’s 2024 fashion week “changemakers” alongside Indigenous model Elaine George, Outland Denim founder James Bartle, and fashion archivist Kim Russell.
Here Mutsiwa explains how to prepare four runways for curly hair and afro.
Preparation: Hydration is key
“Curly hair, by nature, needs moisture,” says Mutsiwa. This means applying hydrating products like leave-in conditioner to clean, dry or semi-dry hair. She says to apply a conditioning spray for finer or looser textures and a cream for thicker, coarser textures. Frizz is a sign that your hair is dehydrated and needs products with more intense hydration. “When you do that you find you can go out in the elements and the style lasts,” she says.
1. To au naturel
The key to a natural afro is to make sure it has definition, says Mutsiwa. “So whether those curls are as tight and as small as the tip of a pen or as thick as your pinky finger, we’re still going to see that definition.”
The first step to achieving this is to wet the hair so that it is slightly damp, then work a hydrating gel or cream through it with your hands. Then apply a hold gel on top to lock in the moisture. Dry the hair with a hairdryer with a diffuser attachment; put it on low to medium speed and remove about 70% of the moisture.
If you want to exaggerate the texture, work your hands through the hair to separate the curls and create more volume. “But the hair is basically going to defy gravity anyway,” she says.
2. Styling braids
“People often struggle with braids because they overthink it,” says Mutsiwa. The key is to keep it simple, so she recommends styling braids by pulling them back from the face and securing them at the base of the neck, pinning them in place or using a hair tie to create a low ponytail.
If you’re using bobby pins, she recommends twisting the hair on the sides of the head away from the face and pulling it back to where you want to secure it in place. When sliding the bobby pins into place, be careful not to snap the hair as this can be extremely painful.
When creating a low ponytail with hair elastics, Mutsiwa threads two bobby pins onto each end of the elastic – so if she’s pinning both strands of the elastic in the middle, the bobby pins are hanging on both sides. She then uses one of the bobby pins as an anchor underneath the ponytail and wraps or winds the elastic band around the hair. To attach it, she slides a second bobby pin along the first, from the opposite direction. To cover the elastic, she will take one braid and wrap it over the top, and insert it into the bobby pins below the ponytail.
Once the hair is styled, Mutsiwa says to work around the edges of the face with a strong-hold gel or hairspray to catch any baby hairs and make them look neat by securing them to the hairline. Then run the diffuser over the edges to make sure they are dry.
Finish with some Shine spray, “to get that healthy, beautiful, shiny look”, she says.
3. Half back, half out
This look is similar to a ponytail where the hair is pulled back from the face but is in an afro at the back. Mutsiwa says to start by defining the curls as you would in step one – a natural afro style. When the hair is dry, take a wide elastic and wrap it around the hair to sweep it away from the face so that the elastic band sits just above the crown of the head.
“If the hair is shorter make sure you pack a lot of firm gel through the top section so it’s even,” she says. “Otherwise the hair will come back up because of the power of the curl.”
When the gel is on, it’s important to make sure the hair is completely dry. To do this, she says, take a soft, light scarf and tie it over the front of the head and, using a hair dryer with a diffuser on high heat and high speed, blow dry over the top. When the hair is very dry, remove the scarf by pulling it from the front to the back. Sometimes Mutsiwa will work serum through the back of the ponytail to enjoy it.
4. The firm bottom
Related: How I learned to love my afro hair: ‘I went from suffering to enjoying it’
“The beautiful thing about curly hair and afro hair is that it’s quite malleable,” says Mutsiwa. To pull curly hair back into a tight bun, Mutsiwa says to start by flattening it with a blow dryer. Make sure the hair is slightly damp and apply some leave-in conditioner and an anti-humidity spray or oil. Then use a paddle brush and hair dryer to stretch the hair out straight.
“I’m obsessed with using a paddle brush; you take a lot more hair and you can get better tension,” she says. “Work the hair from the ends and work up.”
Mutsiwa says it’s not necessary to straighten all the hair, just enough to achieve the look you want. Start from the hairline around the face and work back to where you plan to part it. Once this is done, use a comb to create definition in the part and pull the hair back from the face to where the bottom will sit.
To fix the hair at the bottom, use the same braid styling technique, with hair elastics and two bobby pins threaded to both ends to create a ponytail. If a person has very thick hair, two people may be needed to help and divide the hair into two sections, tying the lower tail first so that the second section of hair can be secured to it. She says it’s important to make sure the model is comfortable because it can be painful if it’s too tight.
The last step is to decide what the bun will look like, for example, “If we are going to twist the bun loosely or tightly into a beautiful bun, maybe a low or a topknot.”
“Then tie the ends of the hair with bobby pins and that’s it,” says Mutsiwa. Finish the look with a strong hairspray followed by a shine spray.
