By Aliya Esmail

Huda Kattan is a makeup artist, beauty guru, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of the cosmetics line Huda Beauty.

Background:
Huda Kattan, of Iraqi descent, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on October 2, 1983. She is one of five children, with three sisters (Alya, Mona, Halida) and one brother (Khalid). One of her sisters is her business partner, while another one of her sisters runs Huda's social media. Huda lived in different areas of the United States up until 2006, when she moved to Dubai (her father was offered a job there). She formally studied makeup artistry and finance in school, but only began posting makeup tutorials and tips on her online WordPress blog, Huda Beauty, in 2010. Huda is married and has one daughter, Nour Giselle.

Huda Beauty:
After three years of posting blog posts on her website and videos on Youtube, Huda gained enough of a social following to venture into the business side of makeup. Using her background in finance, she founded the cosmetics line, Huda Beauty. Her first product, a series of synthetic and faux mink lashes took the beauty community by storm and was released through Sephora. She sold out on her first day and was lucky enough to receive vocal support from Kim Kardashian. With this release alone, her label and brand achieved huge levels of success and Huda was able to introduce more products to her makeup line.
Her company, which is based out of Dubai, started producing other makeup products such as eyeshadow palettes, liquid lipsticks, lip liners, highlighters, and foundations. She has certainly made her mark in the beauty industry, as other big beauty influencers continue to rave about and promote her products, making Huda Kattan one of the most well-known women of colour in the makeup industry today.
Near the end of 2017, Huda sold a small stake in Huda Beauty to strategy investor TSG Consumer Partners (known for working with beauty companies early on and transforming them into global brands; think IT Cosmetics and Smashbox). Huda wants her company to become the next big beauty conglomerate, competing with the likes of Estee Lauder and L'oreal. The company 2018 revenue is expected at $300 million and is expected to be in 900 stores in the U.S. and 600 stores globally by the end of the year. It is currently the top-selling cosmetics line at Sephora in the Middle East.

Popularity:
Huda currently has more than 20 million followers on Instagram and earns approximately $18 000 for each sponsored post. She has also been declared as one of the “10 most powerful influencers in the world of beauty” by Forbes magazine and one of “the 25 most influential people on the internet” by Time magazine in 2017. Huda has an estimated net worth of $500 million. She has achieved so much in such a short amount of time, but continues to dream big and work hard to take her company to the next step.

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