HUDA BEAUTY BOYCOTT AFTER FOUNDER REPORTEDLY SHARES PRO-IRANIAN REGIME POST
- Melissa Fleur Afshar
- Jan 31
- 3 min read
Newsweek Exclusive Feature
A viral Iranian‑led boycott targets Huda Beauty over its founder’s Instagram activity, with Leah Kateb weighing in.
A viral boycott of Huda Beauty is sweeping across social media after founder Huda Kattan, 42, shared a video to her Instagram account (@huda) that Iranians say amplifies Islamic Regime propaganda.
The beauty mogul's move has prompted thousands of social media users to film themselves binning her products and urging major retailers to drop the brand.
The movement has spread rapidly across Instagram and TikTok, driven largely by Iranian women and diaspora influencers who say Kattan’s post ignored the reality of life under the Islamic Regime and undermined their years-long struggle for freedom.
Many of the videos show users throwing out Huda Beauty items, placing posters outside Sephora stores, calling customer service teams to demand the brand be removed, and, in some clips, filming their pets urinating on products before discarding them.
Who Is Huda Kattan?
Kattan, born in the U.S. to Iraqi parents, built Huda Beauty with her sister and co‑founder Mona Kattan, growing a modest beauty blog into a company now stocked in Sephora and valued at more than $500 million.
The brand, named the most-popular beauty label in the world in the Cosmetify Q1 2025 Beauty Index, has a significant customer base in the Middle East. Its aesthetic has long been associated with trends favored by Arab women, shaped by Kattan’s Iraqi heritage and the brand’s origins in Dubai.
Iranian women, despite living under strict Islamic Sharia law that mandates hijab and imposes harsh penalties—including imprisonment, torture or death—for violations, have maintained a strong cultural interest in beauty and cosmetics. They have supported Huda Beauty for years, even amid economic hardship and political repression.
But everything changed when Kattan shared a video on her Instagram story showing a woman burning a photo of Crown Prince Reza
Pahlavi, a figure many Iranians view as central to their vision of a secular democracy and a return to the history and values the Islamic Regime has worked to erode.
Iranian social media users said the clip came from regime‑produced material and accused Kattan of promoting state propaganda at a time when Iranians are facing communications blackouts, violent crackdowns and ongoing human rights abuses.
The outrage escalated as more influencers joined in.
Leah Kateb, a major creator who rose to fame on Love Island and who had previously collaborated with Kattan, commented that she was "so disappointed," a reaction widely shared by Iranian users and credited with further accelerating the boycott.
Author, attorney and activist Elica Le Bon (@elicalebon) also criticized the video, calling it "state propaganda" and describing it as incitement to violence against Pahlavi, who lives in the U.S. She said Iranians had rallied behind him "in their millions before they were massacred," framing Kattan’s reshare as a dismissal of their movement.
"What makes me most angry [is] the fact that thousands and thousands of Iranian women were probably wearing Huda Beauty makeup products at the time that they were massacred," Le Bon added in a follow-up video.
Kattan later addressed the backlash.
"I know a lot of people all over the world are very upset…A lot of Iranians who have left Iran are very upset," she said in a new Instagram story. She denied being pro‑regime but said she did not know much about it and did not feel she had the right to voice an opinion. She compared the situation to U.S. involvement in Iraq, referencing family members who died during the invasion.
However, Kattan's comments generated further anger within the Iranian community.
Creators mocked her claim of hearing "mixed things" about a regime known for widespread human rights abuses, sometimes occurring overseas, and criticized her references to Israel, Palestine and Iraq as irrelevant to Iran’s history and struggle. They also rejected en masse her suggestion that Iranians do not want or fear regime change.
"Are we Iraqi? No, we are Iranian," creator @parpariii said in a Persian‑language video, capturing the sentiment of many. The post, which was shared less than 24 hours ago at the time of writing, has been liked over 47,000 times.
Many Iranians said they were furious at her claim that only Iranians "who have left Iran" were upset, stressing that Iranians inside the country have been risking their lives to speak out and are equally, if not more, outraged.
The boycott continues to grow, with Iranians framing it as part of a broader effort to challenge misinformation and reclaim control of their narrative online.
Newsweek reached out to Huda Kattan and Sephora for comment via email.
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