Umdloti hairdresser goes from broom to bronze

Canadian rapper and singer Drake’s hit song “Started From the Bottom” could easily have been about Nikolas Michael Hair Salon’s Nichollate Mafura.

Mafura joined the prestigious Umdloti hair salon 12 years ago where she started at the bottom sweeping floors.

But through hard work and with the unwavering support of a team she describes as family, Mafura scooped a bronze medal at the prestigious Wella National Trend Vision Awards last month in Cape Town in the Craft Visionary category.

She is also about to graduate as a Master Stylist from Modern Hair and Beauty, a Wella academy.

She originally wanted to become a nurse, but falling pregnant with her first child in her second year at nursing school in Zimbabwe, Mafura was booted out.

To make ends meet, she began styling ethnic hair – a skill vastly different from working with Caucasian hair, she said.

When her husband tragically died in 2009, leaving her with three young children to feed, Mafura came to South Africa where she found the entry-level job at her current salon.

“Nicolas Anamourlis encouraged me to try working with Caucasian hair. I was sceptical, but Nic pushed me,” said Mafura, expressing her gratitude to Anamourlis for believing in her and steering her in this direction.

“Coming from an ethnic hair background, I had no knowledge of Caucasian hair. It’s a completely different technique and the team here taught me from scratch how to shampoo, condition and massage Caucasian hair. I had to learn how to hold the hairdryer, do curls, blow wave and mix colours,” said Mafura, now a style and colour laureate.

She misses home, her family, her children who are now 16, 18 and 22 years old, and her mother who has been looking after her children. But she said she would not have had the opportunity to achieve her successes in Zimbabwe.

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