● Huda Kattan, founder of Huda Beauty and one of the most influential figures in modern beauty, will be honoured with the Beautyworld Icon Award at the 2026 Beautyworld Dubai Awards.
● The recognition celebrates a career that took a Dubai-born beauty brand to global scale, reflecting the city’s growing influence on the international beauty industry.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates - 01 October 2026 – Beautyworld Dubai will present its highest honour, the Beautyworld Icon Award, to Huda Kattan, founder of Huda Beauty and one of the defining entrepreneurs of the modern beauty era, at the Beautyworld Dubai Awards 2026.
The award will be presented during the Awards gala on 7 October 2026 at Le Méridien Dubai Hotel & Conference Centre, celebrating Kattan’s influence on the global beauty industry and the path she has charted from Dubai to the world.
From a Dubai beginning to a global beauty force
Few people have shaped modern beauty as much as Huda Kattan. What started as a blog in Dubai became Huda Beauty, one of the biggest beauty brands of the past decade, sold around the world and followed by tens of millions online.
What makes her story matter is bigger than the brand itself. As one of the first creators to turn an online following into a serious global business, Kattan helped write the playbook much of the industry now follows. And she did it from Dubai, at a time when few expected a global beauty brand to come from this part of the world. That, more than anything, is what the award recognises, she showed the city and the wider region could export beauty, not just import it.
“I’m so honoured to receive the Beautyworld Icon Award. What started as a passion for beauty has grown into something bigger than I ever imagined and I am grateful to the region for being my home and the place where I was able to make a change in the beauty space, and I’m so proud of the journey we’ve been on,” said Huda Kattan, Founder of Huda Beauty. “I’m incredibly grateful to our Huda Beauty team, our amazing community, and Beautyworld for this recognition.”
A recognition aligned with the region’s global moment
The Beautyworld Icon Award honours individuals whose work has left a lasting mark on the global beauty industry. Presenting it to Huda Kattan reflects both her personal achievement and the wider story of a region increasingly helping to shape the direction of global beauty.
"Huda proved a global beauty brand could be built from Dubai. That changed how the industry sees this region, and how the region sees itself,” said Ravi Ramchandani, Event Director, Beautyworld Dubai. “Every founder who walks our halls this October is building on the path she opened. That's what this award is about."
The Beautyworld Icon Award is presented at the Beautyworld Dubai Awards, taking place on 7 October 2026 at Le Méridien Dubai Hotel & Conference Centre as part of Beautyworld Dubai’s wider agenda, which runs 6-8 October at Dubai World Trade Centre.