Two's Company

Eritrean twins Feven and Helena Yohannes were born in a house made of mud, grass and sticks in a refugee camp in Africa. Today, their Los Angeles-based black-owned beauty business and cosmetics line is an Oprah favorite and during Covid-19, sales for 2.4.1 skyrocketed.

- By Peace Hyde

LOS ANGELES-based twins and beauty entrepreneurs Feven Yohannes and Helena Yohannes are no strangers to life’s struggles. In fact, struggles preceded their birth.

The story they have heard their parents often say is of their long months journeying from their home country Eritrea to Sudan as refugees in search of a better place during the uncertain years riddled by conflict in the eastern African country.

And along the way during this perilous trip, the twins were conceived.

What was this long walk like, they once asked their father.

“And my father said with that bright African smile, that it’s like walking from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He said ‘it took us a few months, but we got there. That had such a profound impact on me,” says Feven.

Their father, a respected political leader who was a freedom fighter in the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, embarked on the journey after sustaining injuries when his comrade stepped on a landmine.

It was a close call, and that was the first “miracle” for the family.

The second was the twins’ birth and survival.

Several mothers died during childbirth given the lack of proper healthcare in the refugee camps. Having twin babies was almost certainly seen as a death sentence. Initially, it was believed the girl’s mother was having “a big baby boy” because there was no technology on hand to discern the nature of the pregnancy.