Meet Mohammed Hindash: the first male Arab cosmetics entrepreneur to set the stage.
Makeup artist extraordinaire, beauty mogul, painter and YouTuber, Mohammed Hindash is making strides with his first product, BEAUTOPSY by Hindash Cosmetics. With UAE’s cosmetic industry projected to cross $3 billion by 2025, Hindash Cosmetics has already left its mark within the booming industry.
Below, Contributing Editor, Reefaya gets a closer look into the motivation and development behind Hindash’s latest feat and how it’s disrupting the market.
Hindash, 31, born and raised in the UAE graduated with a degree in Studio Art and gained international recognition for being one of the leading Arab pioneers in makeup artistry and photography. Hindash’s YouTube career, reaching over 68 million views with 1.7 million followers, opened doors to new heights placing him as one of the hottest makeup artists in the industry. “My childhood phase revolved around creativity and I can’t seem to recollect when my art journey began because it was something constant. Growing up, I was always fascinated with faces and spent all my time drawing eyes, portraits and figures. Throughout my stages of growing up with art, I gathered inspiration from comic books to magazines and editorial beauty shots. I always knew I would experiment with whatever medium I could to portray my passion for art and beauty, naturally processed through drawing, painting, photography and then makeup,” says Hindash. Before launching his label, Hindash has worked with renowned global celebrities such as Naomi Campbell, Lindsay Lohan, Chanel Iman, and Mona Zaki. Not to mention, he also collaborated with MAC Cosmetics on a limited-edition lipstick accumulating great success, selling out in a matter of minutes, globally.
Hindash being a trendsetter himself, often predicted the upcoming trends and needs in the beauty industry. The BEAUTOPSY campaign featured six models, each representing a shade from the 6-pan pressed pigment palette: Tan Lines, Wet Paint, Boy Wonder, Feel Real, Love Kills, and Intra Fatum. His new launch has already set the bar and changing the game in the MENA beauty industry. Further in this day and age, convenience is the ingredient to success, which this palette offers. He wanted to create a multi-purpose palette that provides users total control in customizing shades that work for and with each person. “These powders blend like a dream, are buildable and forgiving, making them perfect for beginners in makeup and pro makeup artists. It may look intimidating in its artistry form, but as soon as you use it and play with it, you’ll discover the uniqueness of the chosen formula,” explains Hindash.
BEAUTOPSY may be a convenient and innovative multi-use product, however, it is a champion of being a universal palette that carries the element of inclusivity infused in a diversely exceptional palette. Hindash Cosmetics ingrained the brand’s DNA into its first launch, creating something resourceful and simultaneously inclusive. The makeup entrepreneur displays Avant-garde looks on different races, skin tones, and gender for the launch to leave a stamp on the diversity and inclusivity world. Not to mention BEAUTOPSY is one of the very few vegan palettes in the MENA region. Hindash expresses his strong belief that there’s no need for animal-tested products in the present-day context. “At the end of the day, makeup is not a necessity. We have come very far in the cosmetic industry to push innovation in a vegan manner in terms of producing high-quality exceptional products,” stresses Hindash. BEAUTOPSY took over two years to complete due to perfectly achieving the unique gradients in the powders. Along with his first success as an entrepreneur, Hindash already has great leverage from having a huge following both on YouTube and Instagram to market his brand. “I’ve built my following through education and artistry, so it was amazing creating something that I was thorough about and explain in-depth about makeup and techniques to have my audience fully understand my intention behind it. Due to my consistent content production on YouTube, I have built a community of both beginners in makeup and experts keeping the conversation fun, informative, and helpful. I listen and take into consideration what my audience addresses because at the end of the day I want to cater to enthusiastic makeup lovers and give them a professional makeup artistry experience with my product” states Hindash.
From Hindash’s perspective, the latest upcoming makeup trends in the MENA region or globally will predict the revival of natural makeup and recently trending the 90’s modern look. But to dig deeper, Hindash’s take on the future of the beauty and makeup industry in the MENA region boils down to consumers’ individuality. “It’s great seeing everyone’s take on the makeup industry through their line. I would like to see a product innovation that matched the mission and vision of the brand, and just new exciting cosmetics in the market. When I launched Hindash Cosmetics, I knew I wanted to make makeup fun and exciting again and push the envelope with how far makeup can reach. BEAUTOPSY allows for this.”
"When I launched Hindash Cosmetics, I knew I wanted to make makeup fun and exciting again."
BEAUTOPSY fuses Hindash’s background as an artist and a painter, his past and present experience with makeup and his innovative side to create a lustrous and smooth packing of the product. It was imperative for Hindash to reference all of his techniques and inspirations from his artistry background, to keep it innovative yet stylish while preserving functionality. “The full matte palette has a thin, velvety texture that does not accentuate fine lines and sits beautifully on the skin making it suitable for all ages. You can mix and customize shades for the cheeks as blush, contour, matte highlight or eyeshadow, liner, and brow powder. It’s a product on the go without having to worry about what’s missing in my kit.”
The chosen colours for BEAUTOPSY references Hindash’s experiences as an artist and blend of his painterly background with his current makeup artistry. Hindash gives an in-depth explanation of his product “We start with TAN+LINES, which references my upbringing in Dubai and enjoying the endless summer season. The shade blends a soft tan brown into a white purple, mimicking a “tan line.” WET+PAINT highlights my artistic side, conveying my life around art materials. The blend between the shades of beige and yellow banana shows the manner paint dries slightly darker than when it’s freshly applied. BOY+WONDER is a beautiful peach that transitions into a bubblegum pink, adding the healthiest, brightening flush of colour to the cheeks or on the eyes giving that carefree under the sun. FEEL+REAL is my most unique and versatile colour, it references one of the tattoos I have. It’s a medium brown that blends into a true concrete grey. I wanted to create a customizable contour shade that sculpts the eyes and face, allowing you to swipe your blush along the grey side. 10 different shades of brown and taupe are easily produced depending on the swatch, dip, and brush across the pan. LOVE+KILLS is a blush pan for deeper skin tones, it’s always difficult to discover blush colour for deeper skin tones, therefore I decided to create the perfect one. The combination between a fiery orange and pure tomato red is great for liner or tapped over a red lipstick to give it a velvety matte effect. Lastly, INTRA+FATUM stands for “Within Fate/Destiny” in Latin, blending a rich chocolate brown into a black. This shade is perfect for creating liners, contouring deep skin tones, and adding depth to any of the other colours. Honestly, the possibilities are endless with BEAUTOPSY!”
About The Editor
Born in Bangladesh and raised in the Middle East, UAE and Bahrain, Reefaya is a postgraduate from The London School of Economics in U.K. and an undergraduate from Sussex University. Reefaya has an immense love for sustainable fashion, social development and art.