Beauty

The Best Arab Skincare Brands to Add to Your Routine

BYKhaoula Ghanem

September 24, 2026

Your skincare shelf probably has something from France, Korea, or the US on it. But if you haven’t looked closer to home lately, you’re missing a growing beauty scene that deserves considerably more attention. Across the Arab world and its diaspora, founders are building skincare brands that feel specific to where they come from without getting stuck in the past. Moroccan argan oil and ghassoul, Sudanese and Nubian beauty rituals, Palestinian ingredients, Arabian botanicals, and generations-old hammam practices are showing up alongside peptides, ceramides, AHAs, niacinamide, and Korean skincare technology. Elsewhere, brands are developing formulas specifically for the heat, humidity, sun exposure, pigmentation concerns, and sensitive skin that many consumers across the region know all too well.

The result is a skincare scene with far more range than it often gets credit for. From pharmacy-minded formulas and barrier-first essentials to botanical oils and very serious lip care, these are the Arab skincare brands worth clearing some bathroom-cabinet space for.

Ashri Skin

Founded by Sudanese pharmacist Latifa Elnour, Ashri Skin takes the overwhelm out of skincare with streamlined formulas that bring Nubian beauty traditions into conversation with Korean skincare science. The name itself means “beauty” in Nobiin, a nod to Elnour’s heritage that carries through the brand’s wider philosophy around care and ritual. Manufactured in South Korea, its gender-neutral range skips the increasingly exhausting 10-step routine in favor of straightforward products built around concerns like hydration, acne, brightening, and sun protection. Think effective actives, Korean botanicals like snow mushroom and edelweiss, and a very welcome reminder that your bathroom shelf does not need to look like a small pharmacy for your skincare to work.

AÏZA

AÏZA looks to the Arab cupboard for inspiration, then gives its contents a decidedly modern upgrade. Dates, black seed, sidr, saffron, frankincense, rose water, and even qahwa find their way across the brand’s skincare and haircare, paired with proven actives and formulas developed in laboratories across Korea, Japan, and Italy. The result is a lineup that feels familiar without leaning too heavily on nostalgia. There’s Iced Qahwa eye cream made with coffee and saffron, Cloud Burst face mist with rose water and frankincense, and the brilliantly named Date Setter brow and lash serum powered by dates and castor oil.

Asteri Beauty

Saudi-born Asteri Beauty approaches skincare with the region’s climate firmly in mind. Founded by Sara Al Rashed, the brand’s lineup is designed around the realities of heat, dryness, sun exposure, and long days in air conditioning, with formulas that prioritize hydration, barrier support, and skin prep. Its skincare range includes everything from cleansers and serums to moisturizers, mists, and SPF, with ingredients such as hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, peptides, and antioxidants appearing throughout. The wider philosophy is what Asteri calls “A-Beauty,” an Arabia-first approach to beauty that considers the skin, complexions, and conditions of the women actually living here.

IZIL

Founded in 2012 by Moroccan entrepreneur Mouna Abbassy, IZIL takes the beauty recipes she grew up with and brings them into a modern skincare routine. Even its name comes from the Amazigh word for “pure,” a fitting starting point for a brand built around ingredients long found in Moroccan bathrooms and hammams. Argan oil, ghassoul clay, prickly pear, Aker Fassi, saffron, and Moroccan green tea appear throughout the range, now paired with ingredients like hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHAs, and CoQ10. The result is skincare that gives the Moroccan beauty cabinet a scientific update, without sanding away everything that made those rituals worth passing down in the first place.

Shiffa

Long before doctor-founded skincare became its own beauty category, Emirati physician Dr. Lamees Hamdan was building SHIFFA in Dubai. The idea came during her first pregnancy, when she began developing her own natural body oil after struggling to find something that met her standards for both safety and efficacy. The brand has since expanded into luxury face and body care, combining skincare science with ingredients drawn from Arabic herbal traditions, including rose, jasmine, frankincense, honey, and orange blossom. Even the name sets out its philosophy: shiffa means “healing” in Arabic, and the formulas are built around Hamdan’s belief that skincare should support healthier skin over time.

Sorbé Skin

Lebanese model and entrepreneur Nour Arida started Sorbé with a part of the face most skincare routines tend to forget: the lips. The brand treats lip care with the same ingredient-led approach usually reserved for serums and moisturizers, pairing an AHA exfoliator with ceramide-packed lip butters designed to smooth, nourish, and protect the skin barrier. Its Lip Blur Cushions bring hyaluronic acid into the mix, sitting somewhere at the intersection of skincare and a soft wash of color. And lips are only Sorbé’s opening act, with dedicated face and eye products already listed as coming soon.

Peacefull

Emirati entrepreneur Salama Mohamed created Peacefull after years of trying to find skincare that played nicely with her sensitive, vitiligo-prone skin. Her eventual discovery of Korean skincare became the blueprint for the Dubai-born brand, which condenses the benefits of a lengthy K-beauty routine into a far more manageable lineup. Formulated in South Korea, products pair ingredients like mugwort, cica, sodium hyaluronate, and gentle acids with formulas designed to hydrate, calm, and support the skin barrier. Peacefull also took the Gulf climate seriously during development, testing its formulas at 50°C for three months to make sure they could handle the kind of heat your skincare actually encounters here.

Green Bar

Founded in Bahrain by Reem Al Khalifa, the brand revives regional beauty and wellness practices through botanical face and body care made entirely in its own Bahraini facility. Many of its ingredients come remarkably close to home, with mint, mulberry, rose, and palm harvested from Al Khalifa’s family land, while the brand also works with local farms and distills regional plants itself. Everything is handcrafted in small batches, from soaps and ointments to oils and herbal blends. It makes Green Bar feel less like another “natural” skincare label and more like an ongoing study of what has been growing, healing, and scenting the Gulf for generations.

Dirty Lamb

Dirty Lamb began with founder Ahlam Khan looking at skincare much the same way she looked at cooking. Raised in a Palestinian-American household, the former NICU nurse grew up around ingredients like turmeric, coffee, mint, and warming spices, eventually drawing on that knowledge when she launched the brand in 2016. Those ingredients now turn up across a playful lineup of small-batch skincare, including its Turkish Coffee Mask, Mint Coffee Scrub, Rose Petal Toner, and face oils and serums targeting concerns like dehydration, acne, and hyperpigmentation. Products are made fresh weekly, with Khan grinding locally sourced coffee and preparing botanical infusions in-house.

Kaïna Cosmetics

Founded by Tunisian entrepreneur and influencer Olfa Kaabi, Kaïna Cosmetics is proof that building a solid skincare routine doesn’t necessarily require looking beyond the region. The Tunisian beauty brand takes a straightforward, concern-led approach to skincare, with dedicated ranges for everything from dehydration and breakouts to dullness and uneven tone. Its shelves cover practically every step of the routine, including micellar waters, cleansers, exfoliating and hydrating toners, serums, eye creams, moisturizers, and sun protection. The formulas pair science-backed ingredients with more indulgent textures, while the accessible price point makes committing to the full routine considerably less painful for your bank account.

Misaj

If your grandparents had an oil, herb, or homemade remedy for practically everything, Misaj will feel familiar. Founded by Moroccan-Algerian pharmacist Amèle Moussaoui, the Paris-based brand brings together North African remedies, French pharmacology, and traditional Chinese approaches to preventative care, reflecting the different influences Moussaoui grew up around. For now, its entire philosophy is packed into a single multitasking product: a vegan moisturizer that hydrates the skin while doubling as a mosquito repellent. Formulated with Moroccan essential oils and vitamin E-rich andiroba, it was born from Moussaoui’s frustration with repellents that felt sticky, aggressive, and generally unpleasant to put on skin.

Moondune

Anyone who has gone from 45-degree UAE heat straight into aggressively air-conditioned interiors knows your skin is being asked to do a lot. Moondune was created specifically around those extremes, with barrier-first skincare designed for the heat, humidity, strong sun, and dry indoor air of life in the Emirates. Developed in South Korea and tested for high-heat stability, its formulas bring Korean bioscience together with ingredients familiar to the Arab world, including dates, coffee, and honey. The lineup is refreshingly concise, with a Dates & Coffee morning essence for lightweight hydration and brightening, and a Dates & Honey evening essence focused on hydration and barrier support.

The Best Arab Skincare Brands to Add to Your Routine

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