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May, 2017 | Avril O'Reilly

Mumbi Dunjwa, a STEM role model for girls

So, can a girl get a job in science that she might actually enjoy? Uh, yeah!!! Mumbi Dunjwa has a very cool life.

Portrait of Mumbi in make up smiling.
Mumbi from Naturaz is a naturalista. Her products suit all hair types but she has a particular love of natural hair. Click on the pic to learn more.

Mumbi’s family come fromKenya and she lives in the US.  She is a scientist and has spent a lot of time in the lab developing products for black hair.

Here is what she has to say about her company Naturaz :

“Our passion is to get you to love, handle and wear your beautiful natural hair, regardless of type, with ease, beauty and grace”

STEM and girls

As you might know lots of girls are great at maths and science when they are in school but not enough girls are making a career out of science.  We are delighted to have Mumbi in our book showing how someone can have a cool career in the beauty industry using their science skills.

Mumbi had nice things to say about ‘A Fairy in the Family Again’:

“It would be great to contribute to your book and subsequently to inspire young black girls to not only pursue science but to love their hair.”

All the baby-sitters in the book have different hairstyles.  They are schoolgirls so we couldn’t go too crazy with the styles.  Mumbi talks about braids, extensions and relaxers and how to care for your hair.

Thanks, Mumbi!

The story behind the Shea Moisture incident

Shea Moisture recently upset some of their core users by featuring a red-haired white model in their advertising.

Some users were upset, not only because Shea Moisture seemed to be suggesting that red and afro hair were similar in how they led to discrimination, but also because they were supposedly reformulating their products.

Geeky Mikita responded to the story by getting into the lab and mixing up her own products.

This is not to make light of the situation or hurt feelings but to remind girls that they are not at the mercy of big companies. Many people went online to share the names of lesser known, much-loved black-owned companies.

Response from Shea Moisture

Melissa from BlackHairOMG gave the Shea Moisture CEO, Rich Dennis,  a chance to have his say and try and put things right. Her feature is here:

http://blackhairomg.net/did-shea-moisture-change-their-formulas-recipes-sell-out/

Studious STEM girls might like to read about the tree that gives us shea butter here.