Recently Huda Kattan and brand, Huda Beauty, received scrutiny for a recent product launch and its likeness to BeautyBakerie’s Flour Setting Powder. If you are unfamiliar with both of these brands, let’s dive into their individual history before rehashing the allegations.

Brand History

Prior to founding BeautyBakerie, Cashmere Nicole, became a trained nurse while juggling the responsibilities of parenthood. One day she discovered a lump in her breast and dismissed it as nothing more than an innocent abnormal cluster of tissue. However, the lump grew and multiplied. Through her unrelenting faith and positivity, she had the lumps removed and did not allow Breast Cancer to deter her from her passion for the arts. Founder and CEO, Cashmere Nicole, started BeautyBakerie in 2011 with the motto of “better, not bitter”, which is a testament to her ideology of overcoming challenges that are encountered throughout life. Her love of cakes, candies and sweets is where she drew her inspiration for the products within her line. With the intent to secure more funding and expand her brand, Cashmere Nicole started crowdfunding that received the attention of Beyonce Knowles in 2014; it was then that she knew she had a winning concept in her hands. Yet, this did not boost her crowdsourcing funds, which only garnered $570 from 20 backers prior to Beyonce’s acknowledgment, Cashmere put her head down and continued to work hard on her brand. Although she had many struggles balancing a full-time job, parenthood and her brand, she managed to reach the point of securing a 3M investment from Unilever Ventures in October of 2017. BeautyBakerie is now a 5M well-known brand among professionals and enthusiasts. Wow, what a life story!

Huda Kattan, Founder and CEO of Huda Beauty, majored in finance and worked on the Wall Street of Dubai, as she has dubbed it, prior to her venture into makeup artistry. After moving to Los Angeles and studying makeup artistry, Huda became a makeup artist and began to secure celebrity clientele. Although she had clientele located in Los Angeles, Huda made the decision to move back to Dubai, which is where she secured a position with Revlon Cosmetics. After encouragement from her siblings, she started a WordPress Blog in 2010, titled Huda Beauty, which featured tutorials, tips and makeup products by her and other artists. After successfully garnering a following and the attention of many faithful makeup enthusiasts, Huda started her makeup line, Huda Beauty, which premiered a false eyelash collection. In 2016, she expanded the brand to include lipliners, eye shadow palettes and liquid matte lipsticks. Artemis Patrick, the VP of Sephora’s merchandising team, has stated that he was shocked at how well Huda Beauty’s lipliner products sold at Sephora stores because the product type is usually overlooked. According to Forbes, Huda Beauty is worth an upwards of 1B currently.

Theft Allegations

In February of 2017, BeautyBakerie released its Flour Setting Powder collection, which featured mostly vegan oil absorbing finishing powders in four different shades. The product was a hit with makeup enthusiasts; even being compared to Laura Mercier’s Translucent Loose Setting Powder. The entire marketing campaign for the collection was reminiscent of…baking. That makes sense, right? Well, Huda Beauty released her own version, EasyBake Setting Powder with eight shade ranges in July of 2018, with a very similar marketing campaign.

Jeffree Star, a well-known cosmetics owner and YouTube star, was not silent when he noticed the similarities between the two products. He called out Huda Kattan directly, which Huda denied all knowledge of even knowing about BeautyBakerie’s brand and the allegations of stealing the concept, while also shading Jeffree Star through replies to comments from her supporters.

01/30/2019 UPDATE: Jeffree Star has since deleted his tweets. I attempted to find images of his tweets, so that is what you will see below the original tweet text. 

https://twitter.com/JeffreeStar/status/1020036185475887104

https://twitter.com/JeffreeStar/status/1020039155613437952

https://twitter.com/JeffreeStar/status/1020049010860724224

Let’s be clear, this product in Huda Beauty’s entire product list is completely out of place. Huda Beauty typically features rich, warm color schemes; whereas this single product has a domestic vibe with pastel colors. Furthermore, Huda has always had the Middle Eastern Kardashian vibe with her marketing and products, so launching this single product with that type of marketing was very peculiar. So much so, that it wasn’t just Jeffree Star that noticed the similarities; BeautyBakerie’s team was bombarded with questions and comments about if the two brands were collaborating. Cashmere Nicole took to her Instagram account to address the questions during a live video. She mentioned how Huda’s team contacted her several times over a year ago for PR; Cashmere was happy to share the information considering the magnitude of the Huda Beauty brand. Unfortunately, Cashmere stated that Huda’s team never followed up. In the live video, Cashmere mentions how Jeffree Star actually paid for her products for review purposes and respects how he conducts business.

Huda Kattan responded to the allegations, passively, on IGTV. Huda never mentions BeautyBakerie by name, only talks in circles about the inspiration for the campaign and even mentions that baking originated in Egypt. We all know what she was attempting to insinuate with mentioning where baking originated…

What a mess.

Did Huda Beauty steal her concept from BeautyBakerie? Hmm…you be the judge.

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C O N N E C T – W I T H – M E

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