Exploring life and follicles with Frankie, God of Hair

This week, Mullumbimby’s funkiest salon, Frankie God of Hair, celebrates its 13th anniversary. Everyone in the Shire has heard of flamboyant Frankie Schaufler, but few know the story of how the talented German friseur ended up in this Northern Rivers town.

‘I’m a child of the Black Forest,’ declares Frankie.

‘My dad had the most respected salon in the French sector of Baden-Baden’.

‘A lot of people visited before the wall came down in the 1960s. They all knew that my father had studied in London under Vidal Sassoon.’ 

Frankie had dreams of becoming an artist, but while sweeping the floor of his father’s salon, he realised that hairdressing was also art.

Hair is a canvas

‘Hair is a canvas, a canvas that changes. Whatever you do, it grows out and you can do something new. The impermanence makes it interesting. Hair is like a sand mandala.’

After finishing his hairdressing apprenticeship, he got his first job in the theatre where he learnt to cut a range of styles across different eras. Here he fell in love with classic styles and the avant-garde, though his passion has always been the 1950s/60s.  

‘But I’m not a hair snob,’ he insists. ‘Lots of young women are asking for mullets now, and I think they’re quite sophisticated.’

A photograph on the wall of his salon shows Frankie cutting the hair of an Egyptian boatman in Aswan.

His profession has taken him around the world. Most of his time was spent in India, however.

‘I used to roll out a banner and hang a little mirror, like the Indian barbers,’ he says.

For months, he cut hair on the ghats of the Ganges in Varanasi, before shifting to Dharamsala.

‘Travellers loved Indian barbershop shaves and neck cracks, but not so much the haircuts. They came to me for those.’

It wasn’t until Frankie visited Osho’s ashram that he was bestowed his divine title.

‘We sat for hours waiting for Osho to come out. But one of his aides eventually emerged and announced that Osho had just died’.

‘I suddenly felt it was possible the guru’s spirit had entered my body. From then on, I would be known as the God of Hair.’

As with most of Frankie’s outrageous stories, his claim to be the reincarnation of Osho is delivered tongue firmly in cheek.

The freshly-anointed God of Hair set up shop in Brazil after that, teaching at the prestigious Wella academy in San Paulo.

‘I did the big hair shows and Wella used me as a mascot. I had to entertain some of the world’s most respected visiting hairdressers on a luxury yacht off the coast of Rio.’

This led to Frankie’s appointment as style director for Toni and Guy.

But Frankie insists his time in Mullumbimby has been the most enjoyable period of his life.

‘I love this community’, he says.

‘I try to create a safe, welcoming, non-judgemental space. I enjoy listening and tuning in with people.

‘Many clients see it as therapy, I think, for less money than a psychologist.’

Frankie’s salon certainly feels more like a warm lounge room, with a rare groove vinyl collection, abstract art and books.

And he is well loved for his kind, caring nature and sense of humour.

Paul, the latest addition to his team, also worked for Toni and Guy in London.

‘It can be intimidating for people to stare at themselves in the mirror for an hour,’ says Frankie.

‘So it’s important I serve tea and put on records and make them laugh’.

Antennae to the extraterrestrials

But his customers bring just as much humour to the experience, he insists.

‘It’s Mullum. I hear all sorts of interesting ideas.

‘I had a guy in recently tell me his hair was antennae to the extraterrestrials, and if I cut too much off he’d lose connection to them. It can be a delicate job.’ 

A delicate job, one might argue, best done by a God.

Frankie God of Hair is at 55 Burringbar Street, Mullumbimby and offering 20 per cent off haircuts for a month in celebration of the 13th anniversary.