In Sleeping With…, we ask people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life how they make sleep magic happen.
Before there was Kylie, there was Huda Kattan. Regularly ranking on beauty mogul and wealth lists from brands like Forbes and Fortune, Kattan launched her beauty blog in 2010, followed by her eponymous beauty brand, Huda Beauty, in 2013. Her capital is just as much social as it is financial: In 2017, Huda Beauty was valued at $1.2 billion, and today, Kattan has over 50 million followers on Instagram—over 10 million more than Jennifer Aniston, for reference.
“Running a beauty business, there are many sleepless nights,” Kattan tells SELF from her home in Dubai. “But the thing that really keeps me up is when anyone close to me is going through a hard time, because I always want to try to find a solution and fix it.” For Kattan, it’s really all in the family: She holds the title of co-CEO at Huda Beauty alongside her husband, Christopher Goncalo. Together they share an 11-year-old daughter, Nour, who has a verified Instagram account of her own—and even starred alongside her mother on the May 2019 cover of Vogue Arabia. “It’s very important that my daughter realizes self-care looks different for everyone,” Kattan says. Though her daughter is only soon entering her teen years, Kattan is already leading by example, completing her bedtime routine with Nour by her side. “She should find what works for her and make time each day—whether it’s 5 to 10 minutes or a couple of hours—to focus on herself.”
Kattan hopes to instill boundaries and values of self-care in the workplace, too. She says Huda Beauty (and its companion skin-care line, Wishful) recently implemented “no meeting Fridays and self-love Fridays, where our employees take the whole day off to rest, center themselves, and practice whatever self-love looks like for each of them.”
“To be there for anyone else, you have to first take care of yourself,” Kattan says. “Me time is so valuable, and it gives me the energy and dedication I need to not just care for myself, but everyone around me.” Below, Kattan walks SELF through her bedtime routine—including the full skin-care routine of a beauty CEO.
My daughter and I get ready for bed together, so around 7 p.m. I’ll send her up to take a bath, and then I’ll take my bath, and then afterwards we brush our teeth together.
I try to take a bath almost every night with lavender-scented bath salts, which help dissolve the stress of the day. For me, taking a bath is one of the best ways to reset for the night. Because my skin is so dry, I spend quite a bit of time moisturizing, so I try to do the same thing with her. And then I like to spend some time talking to her about her day, telling her stories. I try to keep the end of the day really grounding and soulful.
