‘THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY CAN BE VERY GOOD AT MAKING WOMEN FEEL LESS THAN’

Before “influencer” became such a loaded word, before we bandied the term around with such indiscriminate abandon … there was Huda Kattan. Now a household name, Kattan started out as a blogger in 2010 and by 2013, launched her eponymous beauty label – now valued at $1.2 billion (Dh4.4bn). Along the way, she has amassed more than 41.4 million followers on Instagram. To put that number into perspective: there are 250 countries in the world; only 35 of them have a population bigger than 41m.

So Kattan is one of the original influencers – one worthy of the lo y title. Because to really, truly influence human behaviour is no small thing. And no small responsibility. This is particularly true in the beauty industry, which can be very good at making women feel “less than”. It is adept at telling us that we are not young enough, or beautiful enough, or light-skinned or smooth-skinned or dewy-skinned enough. It can convince us that self-worth and success are directly correlated to how much we spend on serums and eye creams and moisturisers and masks and primers and highlighters and everything else on that never-ending list of concoctions that are deemed essential to our general well-being.

So how Kattan fits into this equation was my big question. Ahead of the launch of her latest endeavour, a skincare line named Wishful, I had the chance to sit down with the beauty mogul, and she surprised me with her realistic assessment of the beauty industry and her role within it. She spoke about growing up as the daughter of immigrants in the US, and how that manifested in feelings of inadequacy that she has battled ever since. She talked about her hardfought self-love, how she uses make-up as armour, her feminine feminist ideals and the challenges she faces as a high-powered businesswoman.

What transpired is that she is well aware of the considerable responsibilities that come with all her influence. “As somebody who is in the beauty industry, I have a huge responsibility to try to be honest, because the reality is that we post these pictures that look perfect – they are Photoshopped, they are Facetuned, we have so much make-up on. Is it right that this may create a feeling within people that they need to be more beautiful? Yeah, it might, and that’s why being honest is so important.”

And at the end of the day, maybe that is all we can ask of our “influencers”.

Selina Denman, editor