DUBAI: US-Palestinian beauty entrepreneurs Simi and Haze Khadra this week went on tour in the Middle East to launch their brand, SimiHaze Beauty, in the region. Their travels included stops in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

While in the region, the sister duo — raised by Palestinian parents between Riyadh, London and Dubai —  shared insights about their brand with Arab News.

The 31-year-old identical twins, who are also DJs, said that they initially launched the brand out of “pure functionality,” creating products they wanted and needed in their own makeup routines. 

Every product they develop undergoes the same rigorous process of ensuring functionality, they said. 

“We are constantly thinking of new ideas and ways to make makeup easy and fun to apply,” Simi told Arab News. 

The pair launched their US-born cosmetics brand in 2021 with a range of stick-on makeup designs that can be placed on the face for a bold beauty look achievable within seconds. 

The sticker book features an array of edgy designs inspired by their favorite DJ looks from the past, such as chrome wings, neon negative space eyeliner and holographic cat-eyes. 

SimiHaze Beauty then expanded to include a range of products, such as lipsticks, bronzing powders, and a lifting mascara. 

Simi and Haze believe they were “actually late bloomers to the beauty world.” 

“We only started becoming interested in it when we were around 18,” Haze said. “We started SHB from just a single product we wanted but couldn’t find in the market, which is our Velvet Blur lipstick.

“We loved a matte lip for every day at the time but couldn’t find one that wasn’t drying, so we created it.” 

The twins developed an interest in eye makeup when they began DJ-ing.

“We weren’t the best at applying eyeliner, so again we just created our perfect solution which became the eye stickers,” Haze said.

To the sisters, launching the brand in the Middle East “felt so surreal.”

“The market has been such a huge goal of ours since we started because we grew up here,” Simi said. “We’re so happy that our products are finally accessible to our amazing followers here, because they have been such huge supporters since the beginning.

“Now people are finally able to really see and touch and feel the products, which is so important to us because you will never get the experience and vision of SHB unless you actually hold the product and feel the texture, curves, and ergonomics of it. The online experience doesn’t do it any justice.” 

The sisters said that they personally oversee the development of every product. They visit their lab in Italy for a few days at least twice a year to test and create new formulas.

“It takes a while and a lot of back and forth because after we create something it gets tested on our whole family from my grandma to my mom to my little sister and also all my friends with different skin tones,” Simi said.

“My friends are used to me calling them and saying: ‘Hi can I come over and try on some blush colors on you?’ So by the end of it we know what formulas and shades work best on the widest range of people.”

While visiting the Middle East, the sisters observed a prevailing trend in the region: skincare.

“I’ve seen so much good skin here and I can tell people really care about skincare here,” Haze said.

“We’ve also been increasingly obsessed with it. Our products are all infused with skin-loving ingredients, because we’re personally super-paranoid about anything that’s clogging or could cause irritation.”

DUBAI: Early in February this year, Moroccan contemporary artist and photographer Hassan Hajjaj was given a reminder of just how high his star has risen. Within a few days of each other, Hajjaj had shows opening in the US, Morocco, and — as part of AlUla Arts Festival — Saudi Arabia. 

Hajjaj’s playful portraiture, which incorporates vivid color, funky clothing (almost all of which he designs himself), geometric patterns, and — often — vintage brands from the MENA region, has made him internationally popular, and his instantly recognizable style has established him as one of the world’s leading photographers. 

His show in AlUla consisted of images that he shot in the ancient oasis town in February 2023. That visit was initially supposed to involve shoots with around 20 local people. It’s the kind of thing he’s done a few times before, including in Oman and Abu Dhabi. “It’s always a good opportunity to get to know the culture and the people,” Hajjaj tells Arab News.  

But, as he says himself, he arrived in AlUla as “an outsider,” so needed a team on the ground to persuade locals to come and sit (or stand, in most cases) for him.  

“It was a bit tough, in the beginning, for them to find people,” Hajjaj explains. “But because it was during a period when lots of art things were happening in AlUla, there were lots of people coming from outside AlUla as well. So we opened it up. I basically said, ‘Just come.’ 

“In the end lots of people turned up, not just locals — people from Riyadh, Jeddah, and people (from overseas) too. I think I shot around 100 people over a few days. So it was a great opportunity,” he continues. “To get to shoot that many people over three days — organizing something like that for myself might take a year. So, as long as I have the energy, when I get these opportunities — you know, I’m in AlUla with this eclectic bunch of people — I’d rather go and grind it, really work hard, and have that moment.” 

A Hassan Hajjaj shoot isn’t your regular portrait shoot, of course. “It’s almost like a performance,” he says. “There’s music, people dress up, it’s like a day out for them, taking them out of themselves for a few hours.”  

He followed the same modus operandi in AlUla. “We got an ambience going. It was fun, there was music… I shot in this beautiful old school that was one of the first girls’ schools in Saudi Arabia, from the Sixties. Upstairs was like a museum — everything was like a standstill from the Seventies and Eighties; even the blackboards had the chalk and the writing from that time,” he says.  

A crucial part of Hajjaj’s practice is to ensure that his subjects are at ease and feel some connection with him (“comfortable” is a word he uses several times when talking about his shoots). While all his portraits bear his clearly defined style, it’s important to him that they should also show something unique to the people in them. 

“It’s that old thing about capturing the spirit of the person in that split second, you know? I’m trying to get their personality and body language in the image,” he says. “Quite often I’m shooting in the street, outdoors, so (the subjects) can start looking at other people, thinking, ‘Are they looking at me?’ So I usually say, ‘Listen. This is a stage I’m building for you. I’m dressing you up, and we’re going to have fun.’ Then I just try and find that personality that can come out and make the image stronger. With some people, though, saying almost nothing can be better — just getting on with it. I try to kind of go invisible so it’s the camera, not the person, that’s doing the work. The best pictures come out when there’s some kind of comfortable moment between me and the person and the camera.” 

It’s the way he’s worked since the beginning — a process that developed organically, as most of his early portraits were of “friends or friends of friends.” 

“There’s a comfort in that because you have a relationship with them. It made it easy,” he says. “And that taught me about how important it is to build trust with people to get into that comfortable zone. But as time went on, obviously, people could see the stuff in the press or on social media, so then people started, like, asking to be shot in that manner; maybe they’ve studied the poses of certain people and stuff like that, so they come ready to do some pose they’ve seen in my pictures. That’s quite funny.” 

The work that was on display over the past two months in Hajjaj’s “AlUla 1445” is a perfect example of what he tries to achieve with his shoots. The images are vibrant, playful, and soulful, and the subjects run from a local goatherder through the AlUla football team to bona fide superstars: the US singer-songwriter Alicia Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz.  

Hajjaj says he has a number of favorites “for different reasons,” including the goatherder.  

“He brought in two goats and it became quite abstract when you put all of them together. I was playing with that notion of the person; you could see that’s his life and even the goats look happy,” he explains. “I wanted to make sure they had that shine in the image as well. I got some great shots of him.” 

The Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz shoot has been a long time in the making. Hajjaj first met Swizz Beatz a decade ago, and they have been in touch intermittently ever since. The idea of a shoot with Keys first came up about five years ago, but logistics had always got in the way. But since they were playing a concert in AlUla at the same time as Hajjaj was there, it finally happened, on Hajjaj’s last day, with perhaps an hour left before the light faded.  

I ask Hajjaj if his approach to shooting celebrities differs from his shots of “ordinary” people.  

“There’s probably not that much difference,” he says. “They’re coming into my world, so, again, it’s just making sure they’re comfortable with you and you’re comfortable with them; not looking at them (as celebrities). The only thing is you have to imagine they’ve been shot thousands of times — by top photographers, too — so they’re going to have their ways. So I just have to lock in with them and find that comfortable space between the sitter and me.”  

And then there’s Ghadi Al-Sharif.  

“It’s a beautiful picture. She’s got this smile, with her hand over her face. For me, that one really presents the light and the energy of AlUla,” Hajjaj says. “It captures the new generation.”