They’re shear geniuses. Riawna Capri (she / her) and Nikki Lee (she / her) have been locking down their reputation as go-to celeb hairstylists (or as they say, stylists with celeb clients) for nearly 20 years. You’ve probably—no wait, definitely—heard of their Nine Zero One salon, whose clientele includes names like Nina Dobrev and Miley Cyrus. But the dynamic duo also has a haircare brand called In Common—which is anything but.

Catching up with Capri and Lee, we talked about their cheerleading origin stories, how Selena and Demi put them in the spotlight, and why they’re each other’s yin and yang.

What were your first impressions of each other?
RIAWNA: Our first impressions of each other were how similar we were. We had both done cheerleading, but also had parents who were getting divorced. We connected instantly because we almost had the same story.
NIKKI: It felt like we knew each other in a past life. We were the best of friends right off the bat.

How did you go from best friends to business partners?
RIAWNA: Everybody forewarns you not to do that [laughs], but for us, it just made sense because we have the same drive, same determination, and the same end goal. I don’t think we ever looked at it as, “Oh, we’re best friends going into business together.” It was like, “We’re best friends. Let’s do this journey together.”

You guys have already built a salon and beauty academy. What led to making your own products as well?
NIKKI: It wasn’t our dream to open a salon, it just ended up that way. We would be at salons thinking, “Is the grass greener on the other side?” And it wasn’t. The only other option was to do our own thing. Several lines had approached us to do collabs or put our name on their label, but it didn’t feel right. Then we met with luxury brand partners that had mentioned doing a treatment line and that spoke to us.

How do In Common products work for all hair?
RIAWNA: That’s the thing, right? How do you make something universal but have it work for every hair type? That’s where we came in with the idea of enhancers—[products] that enhance while you’re in the shower in whatever direction you need. Moisturizing, strengthening, and smoothing are the three aspects that Nikki and I honed in on as the biggest tackles in people’s hair that need extra umph.
NIKKI: Coming out with Magic Myst was super important because that is for everybody. It’s for fine hair, thick hair, coarse hair, curly hair, every single texture.

You’re both well-known celebrity stylists. Did you ever expect to be in the limelight?
RIAWNA: Nikki and I never call ourselves celebrity hairstylists. Other people do and that’s their thing. But to us, everyone is equal. When we went to beauty school almost 20 years ago, we never thought that being in the public eye was even possible. There was no Instagram back then. There were no “famous” hairdressers that we were looking up to on social media. When Instagram started, we were one of the first salons to get on there. Luckily, we had Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato who would come into the salon, take pictures, and tag us. It boosted our visual presence online in a way we never imagined.

Excuse the pun, but what is something unexpected you guys have in common?
RIAWNA: We both like to roller skate!

Can you do any cool tricks?
RIAWNA: Go backwards really fast.
NIKKI: Riawna is definitely better than me, but I enjoy it.
RIAWNA: There’s this thing called flea hopping where people dance to the beat and go around in a circle. We were very excited when we both learned that we knew how to do it.

Do you feel like working together has had a big impact on your friendship?
RIAWNA: We spend a lot of time together and never get tired of each other. What comes first is our friendship. We are yin and yang, but we also respect each other’s yin and yang. We’re now striving to find more time to be like, “Hey, can we just hang out and not talk about work?”
NIKKI: People ask us, “Oh my God, how have you guys been in business for so long together and still want to hang out?” It’s as simple as, people change. We get and respect that. Like Riawna said, always putting our friendship first is number one and also respecting the crap out of each other. No matter what.