Beauty’s slow movement towards inclusivity is being pushed further and faster by one Habiba da Silva. She’s the 22-year-old Youtube Vlogger with 19+million views on her channel, 689K followers on Instagram and a much-coveted line of flesh-tone hijabs for men and women. As an ambassador for Sleek MakeUp, she’s helping to normalise the representation of Muslim women within the industry. As a beauty pro, we were keen to tap her for intel. Here are the nine rules she lives by….
1. Always Let Your Skin Breathe
‘Making sure I take off my make-up properly is really important to me. It's part of Islam to wash your face as soon as you wake up which encourages me to stick to my morning cleansing routine. I think the best tip is to use two products, micellar water is good for eye make-up and liquid lipstick, but you can use it for your face as well, but I don’t like to. I prefer a non-foaming super cleanser from Selene Daily Skincare as I have combination skin.’
2. Use Your Hijab To Hide How Dodgy Your Foundation Is
‘If my foundation isn’t the right colour and doesn’t match my neck it doesn’t matter because my hijab will cover it!’
3. Let Your Hijab Draw Attention To Your Eyes
‘Because of my hijab, I feel like I need to accentuate my eye make-up more. Also, I am really a nude lip girl, so I prefer making my eyes and eyebrows pop.’
4. Brows Brows Brows
‘I really love the Anastasia Beverly Hills eyebrow range as I love a good brow, especially a dark defined brow look. I love carving my brow and perfecting it as it helps make my eyes standout.’
5. Spend Time, Enjoy Yourself
‘If I’m in in a rush it takes me around 20 minutes to put on my face, but I prefer to take my time and do it at an enjoyable pace. I like to sit down and spend 40 minutes to two hours on it. I can get carried away and enjoy myself too much playing music and re-doing my eyes or my eyebrows’
5. Make Use Of Your Hijab To Cover Forehead Spots
‘The good thing about the hijab is you can actually use it to contour your face as you can pull it lower or higher depending on how much shadow you want to cast or face you want to show.’
6. Don’t Feel Pressure To Wear Make-Up Everyday
‘I definitely don’t wear make-up every day. I only wear make-up if I have an event to go to or a show to do because sometimes I’m just in the office working so I don’t really need to.’
7. When I’m In A Rush There’s Only One Product I Need
‘If I am not wearing make-up and I want to look a little bit done up I just use a little bit of concealer around my nose, under my eyes and around my mouth area - anywhere I have a bit of discoloration. My favourite is the Nars creamy concealer in ginger.’
8. Ignore The Racist Haters
'My hijab doesn’t stop me to doing anything, especially not with make-up and it doesn’t make anything harder for me. But, because I wear the hijab and it is an open religious statement people think they can judge me based on my religion with everything I do. It’s unfair, I am just a normal human being who, like everyone, is still struggling with their faith. I am just like anyone from any faith, from any walk of life, doing whatever they do. Generally, when I get hate comments, I try not to take them personally because the people out there who make them aren't doing it because of me but because of the insecurities they have.'
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.