The Reinvention of Huda Kattan: Why Beauty’s Biggest Mogul is Hitting Reset on Everything
How does one create a billion-dollar beauty empire, exactly? It helps if you’re Huda Kattan; a powerhouse whose secret weapon has always been her rebel spirit. With a relaunch on its way, her second act is here – and this one might be even bigger than the first
Huda Kattan is a tough woman to pin down. Between myself, Editor Olivia and Kattan’s executive assistant, scheduling a gap in her exhaustive schedule has been tricky, to put it politely.
Thankfully it’s not due to diva-ish behaviour, rather that Kattan is in the midst of relaunching her Dubai-based brand Huda Beauty and promoting a new line of liquid blushes on top of back-to-back meetings and interviews. She appears on my screen, perfectly made up, and apologetic for being three minutes late. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been running from meeting to meeting today, but I’m so excited to chat with you.”
Honestly, she doesn’t need to chat to me, or give any of the candid interviews she’s done of late.
The Huda Beauty brand brings in roughly $200 million a year and her social following of almost 60 million people saw her recognised by Forbes as one of America’s top Self-Made Women in 2022.
That journey was certainly colourful; Huda Kattan grew up in Oklahoma to immigrant Iraqi parents, turning to make-up aged 12, after suffering from bullying due to her ethnicity. After studying finance at university and moving to Dubai in 2006, she realised that her true passion was beauty and trained in make-up artistry, before starting her blog. She launched Huda Beauty in 2013 with false mink lashes funded by a $6,000 loan from her sister Alya. When Sephora started stocking the brand, the Dubai store had expected to sell 7,000 of her lashes a year, but within a week they were sold out, and according to Forbes, the brand netted $1.5 million that year followed by $10 million the next.
At this point she could just sit back, relax and count the zeros stacking up in her bank account, or even sell the business and never work again. Instead, she almost did the very opposite. In 2017 the company received a minority investment from TSG Consumer Partners, a private equity firm that has backed brands like Smashbox and It Cosmetics. Then in 2021 Huda Kattan took back control as co-CEO with her husband Christopher Goncalo, after the brand’s former CEO remained in post for just six months. “As soon as we got investors we were advised that you need somebody else to run things – and I believed it,” she says.
That changed when Huda Kattan noticed that she was losing enthusiasm for her own brand.
“There was a point in 2020 when I remember looking at the company, and I thought ‘I don’t know if I want to be here’. But if I don’t want to be the head of my company, how can I expect my team to want to be here? I needed to lead. We didn’t need to be that traditional company with hierarchy and politics, we needed to be a little bit weird and just real, human and imperfect. I was quite rebellious when I first started the brand, because I was trying to prove that influencers, people who were not coming from a VC background, or conglomerates, could do something great.” She’s really taking no prisoners this time: “We were in this meeting the other day and everybody was talking sh*t about another brand, but they didn’t want to say who. So I was like, can we just say the word, instead of pretending? For some reason people think that’s weird. People want to beat around the bush and the truth. I don’t.”
That rebelliousness has arguably dialled up a little of late. It’s rare to see beauty founders expressing political views to avoid the risk of online backlash and the effect on sales. Despite knowing this, last year Huda Kattan used her own social platform to shine a spotlight on Palestine, by sharing a video in the wake of the October 7th attack by Hamas, with the caption: ‘#freepalestine.’ The online vitriol started to pour in; hundreds of thousands reacted online both in support of Kattan, and vehemently against her, with news outlets reporting on the furore too. One Instagram user wrote: ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Israelis from all over the world love you and your products. With most of their money, and you choose Gaza….” Kattan responded by saying, ‘I don’t want blood money,’ resulting in further heated rebuttal. On TikTok, Kattan responded candidly: “I have been getting a lot of threats on my business, and I don’t know which way it’s going to go… I’m willing to risk my entire business, everything that I have… in search of the truth and justice, and we have to be willing to do that.”
Finding her voice again has been part of her journey as a brand founder, and her personal journey too. “I think it’s come from a combination of turning 40 and facing your fears of losing everything and being okay with it – there’s something really liberating about that. I really stopped caring what people think at that point, but you don’t want to ever listen to yourself too much, or totally stop listening to others.”
“When we parted ways from our CEO it was like a completely new team, a new leadership team, and I didn’t really understand myself how to be a leader, so I had to do a lot of listening to them, and to myself. You really do have to trust yourself. Women, especially.”
Like Huda Kattan, I’ve recently turned 40, so I’m curious to know how somebody who has made their name wearing and selling full-glam make-up, is open about their cosmetic procedures and has spoken about struggles with body confidence, is approaching getting older. How does she cope with the infinite pressures on women – especially those scrutinised in the public eye – to remain youthful-looking and ageless at all costs? “Turning 40 was a big milestone for me. I feel like every decade gets better and better, and our 40s is a time where we don’t have to care whether people don’t accept us. Forty was literally the best thing that ever happened to me, but there’s always pressure.” She really thinks about this for a few moments, weighing her options up out loud in an endearingly sincere way. “Do I want to say I don’t mind ageing? I don’t want to lie to you, I don’t want to age badly. Everybody says they want to age gracefully, but do I want to age gracefully? I want to age in a way that looks like I’m taking care of myself. I don’t want to look unhealthy. That’s really what bothers me.”
Like many CEOs and influencers, you’d imagine Huda Kattan’s wellness routines to be gruelling, with 4am ice baths, intensive fitness workouts and regimented diets. “
I love taking care of myself, whether it’s taking a bubble bath, doing my make-up or listening to an audiobook. I wake up early in the morning and I pray – that is my meditation. I am Muslim and I definitely consider myself a religious person – I always start my day with prayer and water. But there was a period of time where I really did look unhealthy and stressed. I think stress is the worst thing and I definitely looked like I wasn’t sleeping. The thing that I take the most care of is my brain – even more than my skin. Our brain is like 70 per cent water, we need to prioritise sleep and I do take supplements for my brain that have helped a lot. I have a huge regimen of things that I’ve done for my cognitive abilities and what’s really weird is the more I take care of my brain, the better I look actually.”
With increasing studies recognising that beauty standards are contributing to global mental health concerns, despite knowing about its inner workings, Huda Kattan is not immune to the pressures that social media and beauty culture is having on our collective self esteem.
“I’m looking at ridiculously beautiful people who are filtered and it affects me – I struggle with confidence sometimes. I definitely don’t spend as much time on the internet as I did and try to make sure my algorithm is not just serving me people like that. I’m one of the OG beauty influencers that’s been around for 14 years, so there is always pressure to look a certain way. Most of the days of the week, I don’t wear make-up, and I don’t feel like I should have to wear make-up just because I’m ‘Huda’. But I had to do a lot of work to feel that way, so I’m proud of that.”
There is a growing movement of celebrities and influencers who – like Huda Kattan – are mindful of the influence they have, by divulging cosmetic procedures they’ve had, or even removing them. Courtney Cox had her filler dissolved in 2017, Chrissy Teigen and Victoria Beckham both had breast implants removed. “I’m somebody people consider very attractive because I know how to wear make-up and I’ve done a lot of fillers and Botox. I’ve done that work… that little nipping. Even though you don’t need it, I have done that, and invested all this time and all this energy trying to perfect a certain look and then I still have these complexities. You just have to really be careful how much you’re soaking in.”
Perhaps part of this contemplation on the impact of beauty culture coincides with Huda Kattan’s daughter, Nour, turning 13.
“It becomes even more challenging when you’re a parent, and a parent to a young girl. I read so many parenting books and the rate of depression is much higher for young girls than it is for boys. I see she struggles sometimes with her confidence and she’s a beautiful girl. We don’t allow her on social media, then she’ll be talking to her friends and it happens. We don’t reward her for the way she looks, but it’s hard because people will say things to her and I’m like, ‘Please don’t talk to her about her appearance’. I think she’s too young to wear make-up and it’s a fight we have all the time. It’s really challenging as a mother to strike this balance where, yes, beauty is empowering but you have to be careful how you use it, because it can go from being a tool to a double-edged sword. It can be something that is powerful for you, but that can also work against you if you’re not careful.”
With a renewed sense of purpose, both for herself and for Huda Beauty, Huda Kattan is excited to be heading up new product development once again.
“We’re getting rid of about 50 per cent of our products. I just don’t want them anymore, I don’t want to be overstimulated. I think the brands that are overwhelming consumers with too much product are going to lose their consumers and there’s so much damage that happens to the environment. We have some measures, but I want to do more with sustainability going forward.”
This new chapter is undeniably about owning her own accomplishments, both at work and personally. “I’ve started to really listen to myself and accept that I need to take a chance sometimes. I might get it wrong, but I need to try and learn. The thing I’m most proud of is my personal development. Not necessarily anything specific, more so the journey itself, and that hasn’t been easy on me at all.” If her last decade navigating the worlds of business, social media and public life with authenticity are any indicator, the next 10 will certainly be worth watching.
Lead image credits: Tiffany Hardwear Link Earrings in Yellow Gold with Diamonds; Right hand: Tiffany Hardwear Small Link Ring in Yellow Gold with Diamonds; Left hand: Tiffany Knot Double Row Ring in White Gold with Diamonds, POA, all Tiffany & Co. Jacket, Dhs30,700; Glasses, Dhs1,030, both Tom Ford
Editor-in-Chief: Olivia Phillips. Photography By Desiree Mattsson. Styling By Nour Bou Ezz. Art Director: Paul Solomons. Senior Producer: Steff Hawker. Make-Up: Shirin Nabati. Hair: Dom Seeley. Styling Assistant: Purna Bansal. Post Production: Ruben Kristiansen. Photographer’s Producer: Luke Miley for LMC Worldwide. Special thanks to HU Management, and Bickiboss Studio
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s July/August 2024 Cover