In Bustle’s Magnificence Element, we dive into the sweetness baggage of our favourite skills for intel on the rituals that maintain them glowing and the MVPs (most dear merchandise) they can not stay with out. Right here, Mona Kattan tells Bustle about her lifelong obsession with fragrance, her pared-back skincare routine, and extra.
Magnificence entrepreneur Mona Kattan has been obsessing over perfumes since she was 14 years previous. “All the pieces I saved from my job [as a teen] went to fragrances,” she says, laughing. “I’d at all times wish to purchase a brand new fragrance — I believe it’s as a result of I’m extra of an emotional individual, and perfume immediately makes me really feel comfortable or energized or relaxed.” That lifelong devotion has culminated within the current creation of her personal perfume model, Kayali.
Engaged on the fragrance model is sufficient to maintain her busy, however Kattan additionally publishes beauty-related content material for her YouTube channel, which has greater than 67,800 subscribers, and is the president of her sister’s Huda Magnificence line of cosmetics. Regardless of all that insider intel and entry, nonetheless, her personal magnificence routine stays comparatively low-key.
“To be trustworthy, I’m extra on the essential facet in relation to skincare and make-up,” she tells Bustle. However Kattan does get pleasure from enjoying round with pigments and experimental seems: “I do love make-up — it’s colour and it’s inventive. However on the each day I in all probability am primary and I’m okay with that.” Though her sister prods her to get extra dramatic with make-up, Kattan says she reserves that perspective for her fragrances.
“My strategy to fragrance is extra is extra,” she says, laughing. Whereas perfume clearly brings a sensory increase and pleasantly scented aura, Kattan says its energy is a lot greater than that. “It’s not simply to make you look good or scent good for different folks,” she says. “It’s one thing very private that captures your recollections. I consider each new perfume is sort of a bookmark in your life.”
Kattan provides that perfume additionally has particular that means in her Arab roots. “I believe perfume has lots to do with the generosity in Arab tradition,” she says. “You wish to depart a spot nicer than you left it.” Abandoning an ethereal scent does simply that.
To maintain her perfume recreation robust all through the day, Kattan has the kind of routine most individuals reserve for his or her pores and skin or make-up. She begins by moisturizing her physique in order that her pores and skin is best capable of take up scent. If she actually desires to amp issues up, she’ll swap in a fragranced lotion rather than a fragrance-free one. Then Kattan sprays her hair with a mist earlier than layering on nonetheless many fragrances her temper requires. Her tip for doing this correctly, BTW: “Begin with the heavier notes first — so if one thing is woody or has Oudh, begin with that,” she says. “You prime with the extra citrus-y and contemporary fragrances as a result of their molecular sizes are so small.”
In any other case, Kattan admits she’s “not that superior” with the remainder of her routine. “I do the fundamentals and I do them religiously, however I’m not somebody who’s going to go strive each single product that’s launched,” she says. If she does enterprise out to strive a brand new elixir, it’s on the advice of her sister.
Learn on for Kattan’s magnificence necessities, under.
Her Day by day Lip Balm
“I’m an enormous lip balm woman — I can’t stay with out it. I really like the Laneige sleeping masks — I take advantage of it as a balm on daily basis all through the day. It retains your lips moist for quantity of hours.”
Her Should-Have Hair Product
“I really like the Briogeo model. It’s my go-to — particularly the charcoal scalp scrub, it’s divine. It has actually reworked my scalp sensitivity.”
Her Go-To For Wholesome Nails
“Throughout the starting of COVID and the lockdown, I got here to some extent the place I chopped off my nails and was simply buffing them as a result of I can’t actually do them that effectively myself. So I simply allow them to breathe and change into stronger once more. I take advantage of the Sally Hansen nail hardener for that — it’s tremendous easy, but it surely’s been my go-to eternally and I really feel like it really works.”
Her Day by day Perfume
“I prefer to spray Invite Solely Amber on my pulse factors for a lingering diffusion. Or if I need a extra highly effective scent path, I spritz it on my garments simply earlier than I head out the door. It’s so humid in Dubai, so I additionally like to spritz it on locations the place I actually sweat, just like the again of my neck or the again of my knees. I even spray my hair towel earlier than drying, or instantly onto my hairbrush as I model, to create a refined and sultry scent that lasts all day and night time.”
Her Fave Moisturizer
“I’m very choosy with my moisturizer. Now, I’ve switched to Honeywhip. It’s not too heavy, not too gentle… it’s like the right center floor. And even when I over-moisturize, I don’t escape, which is essential as a result of my pores and skin’s fairly delicate.”