Masarrat Misbah's halal makeup line focuses on keeping makeup healthy
According to Misbah, “makeup makes you feel powerful. It makes you feel empowered and it gives you confidence. A conscious and mindful buyer appreciates when special details are taken care of to ensure a healthy product. A Muslim buyer will relate her value system no matter where she lives because there she has a sense of pride in it.”
“We have clients from all over the world using MM Makeup because they are care about the harmful chemicals found in cosmetics these days. Along with Islamic principles, we create awareness around the animal testing, negative impact on the environment and the unethical practices that tend to go into makeup production.”
The Halal logo: a new-age Philosopher’s Stone?
For the rising Muslim entrepreneurs who spoke exclusively with Images on Sunday, the halal stamp is their eponymous philosopher’s stone that, if packaged and marketed right, will sell pretty much anything quickly and lucratively.
“When the Muslim consumer learns that a product is part of a Muslim-owned business they become very supportive. When we were starting out we had people offer to volunteer their time and it really became a community effort, which has been one of several benefits of serving the Muslim market,” explained Javed Younis of MAYA Cosmetics.
“Plus, the product just sells itself,” added business partner Bilal Saeed. That much seems to be true given the success in sales MAYA Cosmetics has seen despite being a relative newcomer in a saturated halal beauty market.
Although halal nail polish has been around for some time now (European makeup company Inglot was the first to introduce a breathable nail polish that was approved as wuzu-friendly), according to Younis and Saeed, the nail polish they’ve so meticulously crafted is an industry one of a kind.
“Inglot is considered outdated because breathable technology has improved so much, which is very important to the Muslim consumer. And Inglot does not market itself as halal. It’s for everyone whereas we are adapted for the Muslim consumer,” explained Younis.
The two longtime friends turned business partners put in a lot of time ensuring a quality product on which they then ran cross tests against other competing nail polish brands as well as conducting live demonstrations in front of both chemists and Islamic scholars to ensure halal compliance.
“In a way it turned out to be a form of dawah because we have non-Muslims ask what we mean by halal which turns into a discussion on ablution and purifying yourself which leads to why Muslims pray five times a day, etc.”
“When the Muslim consumer learns that a product is part of a Muslim-owned business they become very supportive. When we were starting out we had people offer to volunteer their time and it really became a community effort, which has been one of several benefits of serving the Muslim market,” explained Javed Younis of MAYA Cosmetics.
But the boys behind MAYA Cosmetics don’t want to just focus on selling a halal nail polish.
“Definitely our niche market is the Muslim consumer. But the health benefits of our product make it relevant for non-Muslims as well,” said Younis. That’s why the company employs a dual marketing approach. One eBay page caters to the non-Muslim, mainstream market by focusing on the health benefits of a breathable, permeable nail polish. The other eBay page targets the average Muslim woman looking for a reprieve in which her prayers are accepted without worrying about having to remove her nail polish.
This desire to sell halal as a lifestyle brand to not just Muslims is echoed by almost all interviewed by Images on Sunday.
For instance, Eman Idil, founder of a modest wear women’s fashion line of the same name, the concept of halal has never just been confined to Islamic permissibility. For Idil the mission behind her fashion line is much larger; it was a way of standing up to the poorly-regulated and atrocious practices of sweatshop-manufactured mass fashion. It just also happens to pique the Muslim female consumer’s attention because her creations are both stylish and modest.
Eman Idil of Eman Idil Designs
“How many people, Muslim or otherwise, refuse to buy anything made in a sweatshop? I can tell you that it’s not many. For me, as a Muslim and as a human being, it made no sense to wear garments that were made by exploited human beings. When we think halal fashion we think hijab and modesty and all that jazz which is great ... but how many of us are reading the labels to make sure it’s not a six-year old in India who made our favourite T-shirt?” said Idil.
“If anyone asks what made me pursue ethical fashion, the answer is simple: Islamic teachings,” she points out. Yet, despite running a modest wear line predicated on halal as a brand, most of Idil’s current clients continue to be the non-Muslim crowd and that’s why for Idil great care goes into marketing herself as not just an Islam-friendly brand but a brand that is welcoming and inclusionary for the masses.
“I’m very careful to not be yet another Middle Eastern-ish clothing line. I don’t claim the abaya as my own, and so when I design clothing, I try and make garments that I can wear as a reporter, or as a yoga teacher, but most importantly as a girl…”
For some design houses, however, visibly branding itself as an openly Islamic brand infused with the ethos and essentials of Islam is top priority. Pakistan’s major fashion house, Junaid Jamshed, is one such brand.
Taking pride in selling clothing without human faces or animal faces, the company strives to be Sharia-compliant in all aspects of its business from advertising to its designs and cuts. The company refuses to use female models in their campaigns and will be backing away from showing the faces of male models in its future campaigns. For its products, the company takes the road less travelled by other Pakistani fashion labels by refusing to sell clothes with sheer fabrics, sleeveless tops, short trousers or pants.
According to Haider Khan, Junaid Jamshed’s group brand manager, the ideology is a very basic one. “We only stock those items which our mothers and sisters can wear.”
Trust issues
The business of halal is predicated on trust. Earlier this year Japan, which is actively seeking to become a top five global exporter of halal products by 2020, got a lot of flack due to its lack of state oversight of the halal industry. With the presence of over 200 halal certification authorities — some of which have been accused of issuing halal certificates without properly auditing the food producing outlets and their products — the country came under heavy fire for its failure to regulate the halal export and import industry.