Leave it to Huda Beauty to do the talking. At the helm of Founder and CEO Huda Kattan, the global beauty brand has given the world something to talk about: the viral Ube Collection, a product line-up inspired by the Filipino community
This is an excerpt from MEGA’s March 2025 Beauty Feature
Prior to its collection launch, Huda Beauty already captured the attention of beauty enthusiasts as it teased on a mysterious purple loose powder. Creators around the world speculated about the product, with some even trying to recreate it using purple eyeshadow and a transparent powder. However, it was Filipino content creator Sean Anthony who solved the mystery. “The time has come!” he said in a short clip. “Huda Beauty is about to come out with an ube, ube setting powder!”
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“If you guys have been following my stories I have eaten ube birthday cake every single year for the last four years,” Kattan confirmed in a video, explaining the inspiration behind her latest collection. “We have a huge Filipino community in Dubai. In our company our product development team is largely made up of amazing Filipino people, super creative, super amazing, I’ve always loved the culture.”
Kattan continued, “And so when I started eating this cake, I asked them: Do you guys think it’d be okay if we brought ube to the world? They’re like, yes, please bring it to the world. Ube is actually almost like a sweet potato. It’s a root vegetable. It’s delicious. Like your life is not complete until you try it.”
Bringing the idea to life was a big mission. “I told them let’s please make this beautiful electric lilac shade. I don’t want to be like a boring lavender or lilac shade,” Kattan said. “Not that those shades are boring, but we’ve seen them before. Like it’s not gonna be something that we can do that can be unique. And they came back with some really intense shades.”
THE UBE COLLECTION
The limited-edition lineup introduces three ube-inspired products. First, the star child of the line which is the Easy Bake Loose Baking and Setting Powder in Ube Birthday Cake (P2,600) is the brand’s latest innovation in perfecting the blushed and bright undereye. The product imparts an electric lilac shade with subtle rosy pigments, promising to help neutralize, brighten, and blur the skin. This shade, in particular, is best suited for medium to tan skin tones with warm to gold undertones.
“This looks really intimidating, but don’t judge it before you try it,” Kattan said, sharing an insider tip on how to use the powder. “I like to apply a little bit onto my cap. So I’m gonna grab a powder puff and I’m just applying a little bit of powder. It’s a very beautiful powder, very brightening, but it definitely looks more pink when it’s on a puff. And what I like to do is I just like to kind of blend it onto my hand just so I’m picking up a small amount.”
Second, the ever-popular Blush Filter in Ube Cream (P1,550) features the same well-loved ultra-creamy, soft-fo- cus formula but in a vibrant electric lilac shade. Kattan notes, “It’s so gorgeous. It matches the whole ube theme and it’s so, so beautiful. It’s what I’m wearing all the time.” And finally, the Faux Filler Lip Gloss In Uuu-baby (P1,400), the sheer electric lilac shade iteration of the brand’s viral high- shine gloss that comes with a collagen-infused formula and a nourishing vitami- E derivative.
Read more about Huda Beauty’s newest Ube collection and their honest take on using their platform to speak on important social issues in MEGA’s March 2025 issue, now available on Readly, Magzter, Press Reader and Zinio.
Photos courtesy of HUDA BEAUTY. Special thanks to LUXASIA Philippines
