By Feven & Helena Yohannes
Our father was a revolutionary. As a freedom fighter and leader in the Eritrean-Ethiopian War, blinded in his left eye by a landmine explosion, he was forced out of his motherland for foreseeing and speaking up against an inevitable dictatorship.
So our story began before were born, when our half-blind father and pregnant mother walked from Asmara in Eritrea to a refugee camp in Sudan's Gibra — the equivalent of walking from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
"It took us a few months," my father once told us with a smile on his face, “but we got there.”
They did this with no choice and no money, wearing only the clothes on their backs. Our mother gave birth to us in a hut made of mud and grass, while our father stood patiently outside waiting for what would be the shock of his life.
With no technology to inform them beforehand of the gender of their baby, they had believed they were having a baby boy since our mother stood just five-foot tall and her baby bump looked unusually big. But no, they had us, identical-twin baby girls!
Our parents looked around the desolate refugee camp and knew it was no place to raise a family. Poor, with nothing more than faith, my mother applied to the American Refugee Resettlement Program.
Learning English
It took a year, but through her belief and persistence, we were selected. It meant we would have to leave our extended family, forgoing everything we had ever known, for a new home in Rochester, New York— the place that would raise us and forever shape the way we see the world.
Arriving there, we had to learn a new language and a new climate, and embrace a completely different culture. Our first few years in America were hard, to put it mildly. We had front-row seats to our parents' struggles.
They did their best to shield us from their fears and frustrations as they raised four children, with little money, in an unfamiliar country. But there were times when we could feel it.
As children in our new land, we watched our parents' stubborn dedication to providing for us.
Our father worked as a janitor, and our mother as a housekeeper at the church that sponsored us, balancing those back-breaking jobs while attending English classes and — always their top priority — caring for us.
Facing those many challenges, they never gave up on their dreams. It took them years, but eventually our father earned a master’s degree in public administration and our mother began a career in nursing.
Witnessing our parents' long, difficult path from struggle to triumph — their hard work and perseverance, their unwavering optimism and ability to embrace challenges as opportunities to grow — made us who we became, and who we are.
'Fascinated strangers'
Resilience is in our bloodline. Resourcefulness, mental tenacity, and faith — the traits of our parents — melded into us as we grew up, took the giant step of moving away from our beloved parents, from Rochester to Los Angeles, and became entrepreneurs.
We were now Feven, an accomplished interior designer, and Helena, a successful talent and advertising executive. Already more than busy with those pursuits, we founded our beauty business 2•4•1.
It’s pronounced "two four one", but it grew out of fascinated strangers in Rochester looking us over and jokingly asking, "Are you guys two for one?" Next, they would ask questions like: “Will you please stand next to each other so I can see the difference?" or "Who’s the smart twin and who's the nice one?"
As we got older, the questions they jocularly asked us held deeper meaning for us. They got us asking ourselves, "Why can't you be two equally powerful attributes in one?" The answer, "You can embrace both."
So, the 2•4•1 brand is a reflection of our belief that women are both brains and beauty — we don't have to choose one or the other; we can be both. Along our way from the eastern cusp of Africa to the western shores of America, we learned words are magic if we use them in the right way.
We see make-up as a meditative process. Because the stories we tell ourselves are powerful, the names we give our products and the ways we describe them are specific and premeditated.
Our products — with names like Role Model, Honor and Class Act — are a practice in daily affirmations. We are not just here to sell confidence; we want to instill it as well.
Taking responsibility
Not long after we started 2•4•1, as business owners we saw first-hand how the pandemic was wreaking havoc on our own sales and on the economy in general, and we worried about the survival of our company.
But through social media, we were able to connect with and learn more about our customers and supporters. We used Instagram to showcase our products and tell our story, and to connect with our audience on a deeper level.
We even got the attention of someone really special—another revolutionary, though in a different way.
Inside our homes in Los Angeles, which are just three blocks apart, we each keep the same two framed photographs on our desks: the first one is of us as little girls, a daily reminder of our innocence and curiosity.
As we grow older and take on more responsibilities, it might be easy to lose sight of who we are and what we stand for. But those little girls in the photo ground us in our core values and the things that matter most to us.
The second is a photograph of Oprah Winfrey holding a 2•4•1 Cosmetics product. It's a visual representation of our dream come true.
Being recognised by someone as influential and respected as Oprah, someone who changed the world, has impacted our business in ways that we are still processing.
When she came across, and embraced, our 2•4•1 products, little did Oprah know that it was her book, What I Know for Sure, that had inspired our brand, and that her voice and the lessons she taught us through the book had already served as our North Star throughout our entrepreneurial journey.
