These Inspiring Muslim Vloggers Are Changing Minds With Makeup

The most beautiful thing about these four stellar beauty influencers is their power to shatter harmful stereotypes.

Muslim vloggers Dina Tokio, Zukreat Nazar, Manal Chinutay, and Amena Khan have a combined following of over 4 million people. In a new video from Elle, these talented women open up about how they use their platform to not only provide makeup and beauty and style inspiration, but to shatter misconceptions and change the conversation about Muslim women.

They open up about the labels placed on them, how wearing hijab is their own choice, why starting their YouTube channels filled a void of representation and how, yes, makeup really can make a difference in the world.

“It annoyed me a bit that I didn’t see any representation of Muslim women other than really negative ones or ones that just weren’t like me and my friends were, and I just thought, ‘You know what, the only way to talk to people or show people what we’re like is to just get on,’” said Tokio. “’Get on YouTube, get on social media yourself, and just do it yourself.’”

“It may seem like such a small thing to do, to have the notion that beauty can make a difference,” Khan said. “But just having the platform and being able to engage with people as a human has the potential to broaden people’s minds about understanding Muslim women, and women in general.”

Chinutay said that within Islamic society “there [are] a lot of head turns toward people who do practice makeup or that style the hijab a little differently,” but she maintained the importance of continuing to do so.

“I feel like what I do really empowers women, and builds confidence in women,” she said. “And builds a community of Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Having an open dialogue and understanding of one another is crucial. If change can start with a blush brush, count us all the way in.

Watch the entire video above.