Huda Beauty, the global cosmetics empire founded by Iraqi-American mogul Huda Kattan, has officially partnered with Nadeen Ayoub, the first-ever Miss Universe Palestine, and the collaboration is making waves for all the right reasons.
The announcement came via Huda Beauty’s Instagram post, captioned, “We’re so proud to support the first-EVER Miss Palestine @nadeen.m.ayoub to compete in Miss Universe. This moment is so much bigger than pageantry. It’s about strength, pride, and representation.”
At 27, Ayoub isn’t your conventional pageant queen. A wellness advocate and sustainability champion, she’s gearing up to represent Palestine at the 74th Miss Universe pageant this November in Bangkok, competing against over 130 contestants from around the world.
What makes this partnership stand out is that it’s rooted in shared values rather than surface-level glitz. Ayoub’s work through her organisations, Olive Green Academy and the Sayidat Falasteen Foundation, focuses on sustainability, education, and women’s empowerment, causes that align perfectly with Huda Beauty’s ethos of authenticity and fearless self-expression.
On that note, the partnership feels especially significant given Kattan’s history of speaking up for Palestine. As she told Vogue Arabia in September, “Once you learn about Gaza, once you learn about Palestine, you can never un-see it.”
She admitted that early on, a lot of people tried to intimidate her — “I began speaking out… almost immediately, I started receiving horrible online messages, and people were telling me that I was going to lose everything, that it was such a shame since I had just started my business, and it really intimidated me. It felt like it was all hate and threats. It honestly worked for a while. I remember being deeply affected by it and depressed for weeks. I would sit in my living room crying, trying to find ways to spread the word.”
