WORDS: OLIVIA MORRIS
The Billion Dollar Empire
three brands. With the help of my sisters, we launched Huda Beauty in 2011 after seeing a gap in the market. We launched our false eyelashes in Sephora, and they sold out in a matter of days and the brand grew from there! It’s been an incredible whirlwind and we honestly have been so grateful to have the community of all of our day one followers and supporters from the blog who have helped grow the brand into what it is today. They have been one of the incredible constants since we began this journey. Can you talk us through all of the brands under the Huda Beauty umbrella you have now? Today, we have Huda Beauty, WISHFUL, and KAYALI. WISHFUL was born from my personal quest to solve my skincare needs. With WISHFUL we’ve created an assortment of gentle, simple, and effective products that provide instant and long-lasting Can you talk us through your career? After getting fired from results. Huda Beauty is the ultimate one-stop shop for my first job out of university working in finance, my sisters makeup lovers. Our products are created with high-end convinced me to go to beauty school. I truly loved beauty formulas and textures, with the ultimate goal of helping and makeup and I took their advice to invest in my passion. everyone feel empowered, confident, and joyful. KAYALI I worked as a freelance makeup artist for several years and my is a brand born from my sister Mona’s passion and admisister encouraged me to start writing a newsletter about beauration for fragrance. The inspiration for KAYALI is firmly ty products that I loved, which I loved and would send out to rooted in our Middle Eastern heritage. We wanted to comour friends. That grew organically, so we decided to start the bine the best of our culture and our Western background to Huda Beauty Blog and the rest is history! encourage perfume layering and inspire everyone to create How did you find yourself entering the beauty space? I was their own unique combinations. always drawn toward beauty. I’d always watch my big sister, Alya, put on her makeup and was fascinated at how it could Social media has played a huge role in growing your brand. transform the way you feel. Once I started using beauty for When did you realize just how much power platforms like myself, there was no turning back and I was totally obsessed. Instagram have? Our social platforms serve as a tool for I would test and try anything that I could get my hands on. us to connect with our community. The fact that I can I even started creating my own at-home beauty remedies, connect directly with our followers, and ultimately our which I would share on the blog and have now grown to be the customers, is so unique to Huda Beauty since we were esbasis of a lot of our products. I think I always had beauty in sentially born on social media. my heart. It comes as second nature to me and I truly enjoy It’s incredible to see you build this empire with your famthe creative outlet that it is for me. ily around you. Would you say this family feel resonates You launched your blog, Huda Beauty, over 10 years ago and throughout the entire business? Absolutely. We honestly think of our teams around the world as a family. We’ve built now it’s grown into this huge beauty empire. What has the joura company that’s based on the principles of kindness and ney to get to where you are now been like? I honestly can’t befamily spirit. It’s this family spirit that we also try to mainlieve how far we’ve come. When we started the blog, I honestly never envisioned that we would have one brand – let alone tain in the way that we interact with our consumers. We
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What started as an online blog over a decade ago has transformed into a billion dollar empire. In an exclusive interview with Emirates Woman, Huda Kattan, Founder of UAE-based brand Huda Beauty, tells us what it takes to create a timeless brand that’s dominated the beauty space on a global scale
BEAUTY
10/31/21 3:00 PM
