The controversy began earlier this week when Kattan, who has more than five million Instagram followers, reposted a video related to the unrest in Iran.
The footage showed supporters of the Islamic Republic burning images of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and U.S. President Donald Trump—content critics said closely resembled state propaganda.
Many Iranians, both inside the country and in the diaspora, reacted with anger. Videos soon began circulating online showing users smashing, burning, or discarding Huda Beauty products in protest.
Some clips took a more satirical or graphic approach, depicting Kattan covering killed protesters with makeup, applying cosmetics to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, or appearing dressed as a cleric.
Others showed palettes and lipsticks dumped into garbage bins, gestures meant to signal rejection of the brand and what critics saw as Kattan’s misstep.
Kattan deleted the original Instagram story within hours, but the backlash continued and soon extended to prominent figures in the beauty community.
Nicknames such as “Mullah Beauty” and “Ayatollah Huda” quickly spread online, underscoring the belief among critics that the post amplified regime talking points rather than the voices of protesters.
Naz Golrokh, a US-based Iranian influencer with more than nine million Instagram followers, was among the first high-profile figures to call for a boycott. “If you can’t stand with innocent people, at the very least, don’t spread lies against them,” she wrote, urging her followers to stop purchasing Huda Beauty products.
Her post—showing a pile of destroyed cosmetics—received more than one million likes, becoming a rallying image for the campaign.
Iranian-American celebrity hairstylist Henry Zador also joined the boycott, posting videos of himself discarding Huda Beauty products and urging others not to underestimate their collective commercial influence.
“If Iran’s revolution succeeds and all major cosmetics companies enter the market, Huda Beauty will have no place in that large market,” Zador told Iran International.
Calls for accountability soon reached major retailers, with some users urging chains such as Sephora to reconsider carrying the brand unless Kattan addressed the criticism publicly.
Even Kattan’s sister and longtime collaborator, Mona Kattan, unfollowed her on social media amid the backlash. Mona, who has 3.8 million followers, has been more openly supportive of Iranian protesters, highlighting divisions within the beauty community over how to respond to the unrest.
Jehan Hashem, an Iraqi influencer with 15.5 million followers, also posted stories of unfollowing Kattan and expressing solidarity with Iranians.
Kattan later posted a series of messages denying support for the Islamic Republic and saying she did not feel qualified to take a public position on what she described as a complex internal political situation.
She also cited past US military interventions, including in Iraq, as shaping her reluctance to endorse foreign involvement.
For many critics, that framing deepened the backlash. They argued that labeling the uprising an “internal issue” minimized the scale of state violence and echoed language long used by Iranian officials to deflect international scrutiny. Others said that if she felt insufficiently informed, she should not have posted at all.
The episode follows earlier controversies involving Kattan over social media commentary on geopolitical issues, a history that has made critics quicker to scrutinize her public statements.
Huda Beauty is widely considered one of the largest cosmetics brands in the Middle East.
While no official data exists on its market share in Iran, the scale of engagement with the boycott—including visible participation by Instagram users inside the country—suggests it could have a tangible impact on the brand’s standing there.
