Liha Okunniwa & Abi Oyepitan

Photo Courtesy Of Líha Beauty

OKAY LADIES, WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW AND WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?
Abi: I live in Hackney in East London, I’ve been living here for the last four years. I’m a total Londoner, I was born and bred in NW London.

Lahi: I’m in Cheltenham right now looking out at the hills. I love London but I need a slower pace of life to think straight. I’m a country girl at heart.

HOW DID THE TWO OF YOU MEET?
We met at University – in those days when you saw another girl rocking an afro it said something about their tastes and sensibilities, it was quite unusual back then to see girls with natural hair.

Lahi; I always thought Abi was so cool because she was on the England athletics team. I ran for Gloucestershire but then discovered boys and parties at 16 and started slacking off. She would always come knocking on my door when she had some time off and wanted to turn up!

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY?
It’s funny to say/think we are in the beauty industry – it wasn’t really by design, we were just making products for ourselves and our friends and family, and then decided to take the plunge and go for it. I would always be asking Abi to bring me the good Nigerian Shea and be adding oils and things to it. We have been really humbled by how well we’ve been received. We launched at Port Eliot festival just as a test to see how the products would be received, and ended up selling out everything and meeting the head buyer for Anthropologie.

WHAT ARE YOUR EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUNDS AND HOW DID YOU AQCUIRE THE TECHNICAL KNOW-HOW TO MANUFACTURE COSMETIC PRODUCTS?
We are very intuitive - it's what we learnt from over 15years of making products for ourselves. Liha grew up with a herbalist/ aromatherapist mum, so its like second nature for her. It’s starts with an idea for a products and whatever new ingredients we are playing around with. As all our products are natural in ingredients, it’s not like we need to worry about any super serious reactions so we can get creative. We test everything on ourselves first and gives samples to our friends and family, once we are happy with it we then send it to our chemist for EU testing.

WHAT SKIN CARE AND HEALTH ROUTINES DO YOU SWEAR BY, AND WHAT ARE THE KEY INGREDIENTS IN YOUR LINE?
The key ingredients in our range at the moment are Shea butter and coconut oil. We wanted to start with the African beauty secret classics, and then start adding more diverse things, like plantain ash and moringa, which you can find in our black soap. At the moment were obsessing over Yam extract and dong in depth research on Nigerian botany.

Lahi: I swear by a good double cleanse every night and I like multi-masking at the moment. Health wise I cant live without Hatha Yoga which I’ve been doing for 20 years. Abi is more simplistic and tends to use all natural oils like sweet almond and jojoba oil.

WHAT IS THE DIVISION OF LABOUR WITHIN LÍHA AND WHAT VISION DO YOU INDIVUALLY BRING?
We both play a hand in formulating the products and as we are both quite creative with packaging and anything to do with how our brand looks and is portrayed. Abi is way more technical so she deals with more of the technical stuff like the website, graphics, spread sheets, newsletters, whereas I write a lot of the copy. We both have the same vision for the brand and that what makes us work so well, also I have never met anyone more impatient than me until I met Abi, so we definitely push each other to stay on the grind!

HOW DO YOU BALANCE WORK WITH OTHER PERSONAL COMMITMENTS?
It’s been very, very difficult, we both still have our day jobs albeit we both are self-employed but it’s always a challenge balancing everything to ensure we aren’t neglecting any areas.

ANY HOBBIES OUTSIDE OF WORK?
Abi: For me, having hobbies has been very difficult, as well as doing all my various jobs I’m also trying to finish my Pilates qualifications as a teacher, so there isn’t much time for hobbies at the moment.

Lahi: Same here, between running two businesses and home educating my 11 year old, not too much time! I try and squeeze in time to make music for myself and write once in a while, or else I would lose it completely.

WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES AND STYLE INSPIRATIONS?
When it comes to our brand our influences has definitely been the rich history of Nigeria and the diaspora. Just the whole culture and how it has travelled is a huge inspiration for us, whether its Santería in Cuba or Cantomble in Brazil, Hoodoo in New Orleans, there is such a wealth of knowledge about working with the earth and respecting nature.

:Abi: My style inspiration is forever changing, back in the day women like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu were everything, not only with the styles they rocked but the way they empowered and spoke to women of my generation. Now women like Amanda Lastenberg and have taken over the mantel-women who aren’t afraid to speak about the political and social climate. Artists on Instagram really inspire us daily. On Instagram, Currentlyelise and Yesladyphoenix are favourites.

:Lahi: I’m really inspired by the past in a lot of ways. My parents are a constant style inspiration for me. I grew up in their shops, living above them, and it was a natural mix of Nigerian and African styles. Furniture, jewellery, books, oils. My dad hitchhiked around the world in the late 50’s/early 1960’s and nearly settled in Sweden. He became obsessed with the minimal Scandinavian design, and you can see this Afro-Scandic influence in our design which came from looking at old photos.

WHICH ARE YOUR FAVOURITE SPOTS TO HANG OUT IN LONDON?
Abi: I love going to Hatch in Homerton for a coffee and it’s also a great co-working workspace. The Ace Hotel in Shoreditch is a good spot to catch a cocktail and Oslo bar in Hackney central you can always hear a good live band.

Lahi: I love the British Library, they always have great exhibitions and I love the fact that every book ever published is there. I like just hanging out inn there, geeking out on things I’m interested in. Wandering around Liberty has always been a way to unwind. It’s still so surreal to see our product on the shelves.