ELLE Cover Star: Huda Kattan On Reclaiming Her Power

The veil didn’t just frame her face. It reframed the woman behind it. That was the thought that struck me as Huda Kattan stepped onto set in a custom Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla. She looked in the mirror, tilted her head, and broke into a grin: “I’ve never done anything like this before. I felt unbelievably beautiful. I think this is going to be the most beautiful cover I’ve ever done. I felt like I belonged in it. I don’t want to take it off.”

The shoot took place not in some borrowed palace but inside Huda Beauty headquarters in Dubai. A machine that runs on timestamps and precision: the communications team, social, her fashion and hair and makeup entourage, and our editorial crew. Everyone knew their beat. And yet, it never felt rigid.

Between frames, Huda danced to Bollywood beats with Sandeep Khosla, cracked jokes, hugged anyone within reach, and yes, she complimented me—something I may be taking to the bank. Her team filmed everything: the BTS reels, the transitions, the touch-ups. It was a rare sight—the mogul herself letting loose while her billion-dollar brand documented every second.

The headquarters itself was a shrine to the empire: life-sized product installations, a beauty counter where you could swatch to your heart’s content, and in her private studio, couches strewn with giant pillows shaped like her powder puffs. As someone who has spent over a decade in beauty, it felt surreal to stand where the brand itself was imagined into being; the epicentre of a phenomenon I had once only watched unfold from a screen.

All the Women She Is

When I asked how she thinks about her different versions—the blogger, the educator, the entrepreneur, the mother—she didn’t hesitate. “All of those women represent me. I have emotions, and I have different periods in time where I’m a different woman. And that’s okay.”

It’s a philosophy rooted in self-acceptance but also defiance: an understanding that the industry prefers singular archetypes, while she insists on plurality. “I’m trying to be present… allow myself to be whatever the moment allows for me to experience and to become.”

If you’ve followed her since the YouTube days, you’ll remember the early tutorials: contour maps, shadow play, reshaping a face on camera before most of us even had the vocabulary. She wasn’t just remaking herself; she was educating a generation. That educator is still alive in the founder who reminds me, “Beauty is a tool. It’s a tool of empowerment.”

For me, those early videos weren’t just tutorials—they were a lifeline for women of colour who had never seen themselves centred in beauty conversations. Huda didn’t invent contour, but she democratised it, making artistry feel accessible long before Instagram made it a trend.

Power, Not Permission

The arc of empowerment sharpened in 2025, when Huda Kattan took back full ownership of her brand. She’s matter-of-fact but unsparing about the years in between. “The journey of a founder is a difficult one. It almost killed our business. Our sales declined, and our sales have more than doubled since then.”

When she and her sisters bought out their investors, she refused to follow the usual script of cuts and layoffs. “We didn’t take a penny. I refused to lay off any team members.” She smiles as she says it, but the steel is unmistakable. “I can do whatever I want now. I had so many founders reaching out to me, asking me how they could do that themselves.” That control isn’t just symbolic. “Every part,” she says when I ask how much of her presence remains in Huda Beauty. “PD and social, particularly, I still manage those departments.” She laughs off the word “micromanager,” but doesn’t deny it. Her fingerprints are everywhere, as they were from the start.

For readers who measure legacy in products: Huda Beauty’s original lashes became cult favourites at Sephora, her Faux Filter foundation disrupted shade diversity conversations, and her Easy Bake loose powder practically broke the internet. To regain control of an empire built on such icons isn’t just a financial move—it’s a reclamation of narrative.

And in the same year, Kayali—the fragrance brand launched by her sister Mona—spun off into its own orbit, backed by new investors. Together, the sisters reshaped what a Middle Eastern beauty dynasty looks like in 2025: independent, female-led, and still wildly ambitious.

Softness as Strength

Our conversation drifted to India, a market and a mirror. “They have a way of being able to be soft but strong at the same time,” she said of Indian women. “It’s a beautiful thing when you can realise that you can be both. You can be soft and firm.”

Then she turned the question back to me: how does this duality happen? Why softness and strength, together? I found myself speaking of conditioning—that Indian women are raised to carry both grace and grit, like the root of a tree that nourishes and holds firm at once. She nodded, and for a moment the interview became less about answers than about recognition. For Huda, this duality isn’t abstract. As a child in the US, she felt erased. “I felt very ugly as a child… I didn’t grow up in a place where there were any brown people.” In the Middle East, she learned a different femininity. “Growing up in the Middle East I think women are taught to be a little bit softer and forgiving.”

Between those poles, rejection and resilience, beauty became her language. It translated her across cultures, and it remains her instrument of agency. And here in India, where beauty is ritual as much as it is aesthetic, her words resonate as more than observation—they explain why her brand continues to strike such a visceral chord. Her lipsticks trend across Instagram reels, her eyeshadow palettes sell out during Diwali, and Indian consumers tag Huda Beauty in thousands of everyday transformations.

What Is Beauty?

Responsibility is a word many founders dodge. Huda embraces it. “100%,” she said when I asked if she feels accountable for the direction of online beauty. “I’m relentlessly going to be here for the purpose of shaping the beauty industry. I would only sell to a conglomerate if they allowed me to be on their board so I can continue shaping the beauty industry.”

It’s a rare stance in an industry where founders often sell, step back, and vanish. She is doubling down, not walking away.

And then, as if she were writing her own headline, she distilled it all: “Beauty is power. That’s it. That’s why I’m here.”

It circles back to that first look in the mirror at headquarters—the moment she didn’t just see herself dressed in couture, but reframed in her own power. And in doing so, she hasn’t only rewritten her reflection. She has redrawn the very contours of the beauty industry itself.

Editorial Director: Ainee Nizami Ahmedi; Makeup: Huda Kattan; Hair: Dom Seeley; Words by: Kannagi Desai; JR. Bookings Editor: Anushka Patil; Assissted By: Tejashree Raul (Styling); Production: Huda Beauty.