By Nour El-Miligi
Many of the Arab women turned entrepreneurs who were originally passionate about fashion, makeup, or even cooking, that once they only considered it a hobby. Yet as they started to share more of their passion with the world, they’ve ended up making national and international brands, gaining massive fame and money out of their passions. Here’s our list of Arab women who have worked hard to carve their own names in a male-dominated society and managed to create a business out of their passions.
Hadia Ghaleb
An Instagrammer who has always been passionate about fashion and building her fanbase for the past five years. She used to work for Cairo Fashion Magazine, but later she focused on her Instagram account that now reached 1.8 million followers and managed to create a successful fashion boutique “Ghaleb Production House”. She also managed to found a marketing consultant company at only the age of 27!
Joelle Mardinian
An Italian-Lebanese beauty expert and businesswoman who inherited her passion for beauty from her mother who used to work as a beauty expert back in the days. She made a legacy and a huge fanbase on Instagram sharing her beauty tips to her 13.5 million followers and has made huge success and profits by launching her own beauty salon named after her “Maison De Joelle”.
Basma Boussel
A Moroccan celebrity who was previously a “Star Academy” contestant who has a beautiful voice, yet after marrying the Egyptian superstar Tamer Hosny she left the singing behind and started sharing her passion for cosmetics and fashion styling that she has currently made her own brand named “Basma Boussel cosmetics” that is now a very successful boutique in Morocco.
Rawan Bin Hussein
A Kuwaiti model and businesswoman who originally entered the world of fame when she documented her huge loss of weight on social media, turning into a model. She was originally a writer but later she gained unexpected fame when she posted pictures on Instagram, showing off her beauty and passion for makeup kits. Now she currently founded her own brand of makeup products “House of Rawan”.
Karen Wazen
The well known Lebanese content creator is one of the most followed influencers in the middle east, who has translated her love for fashion into making her own eyewear brand “By Karen Wazen” gaining more followers and fame as time passes by, making money out of her best-seller sunglasses. She has recently even added an Instagram filter for her eyewear products.
Nour Arida
Lebanese model Nour has been collaborating with international makeup brands such as Sephora and Mac. She has always had a thing for makeup, especially lipsticks, which pushed her into making her own “NourXmac” lipstick which brings her thousands of dollars per year.
Farah Nofal
A yoga guru who developed a passion for yoga by coincidence, when she got injured and started trying yoga and meditation as a way of healing. Farah started off by only posting yoga videos on her Instagram account than on her YouTube account, giving online yoga classes. Finally, she founded a shopping and retail website that sells yoga tools.
Menna El Sonny
An Instagram influencer who’s obsessed with makeup, matching outfits and cooking, has turned her passion into work by creating her own fashion boutique for kids wear, “Inizio Brand”, gaining a lot of profit and fame out of it.
Never underestimate your capabilities nor bury your talents, they can take you places!