This UAE Entrepreneur Aims To Simplify Beauty Shopping With Her New Platform In The Region

We are all consumers of beauty products in the UAE. But not all beauty products are for us. Sometimes, the sheer volume of products in the market can confuse and overwhelm us. NOUR is a UAE-based homegrown editorial e-tail platform that aims to disrupt and change the way consumers experience beauty online. It is an app that promises both editorial content, product curations for customers and hopes to change the game with regard to beauty in the region.

We spoke to Nidhi Sharma, former Beauty Director at Vogue India, and the founder of NOUR. Here's what she had to say:

The brand profile sheds some light on what inspired you in the ideation of NOUR. For our readers who are not familiar with the enterprise, could you give us a concise version of the same?

As a former Beauty Director at Vogue, I've spent most of my life giving beauty advice to my friends, family and colleagues. Someone is always asking me to weigh in on their next beauty purchase. That made me realize that beauty is a category we are all hopelessly obsessed with and can't get enough of. Even with all the social media content clutter, people still don't know what to buy, they are confused whether it will work for them, whether it's right for their skin and hair.

They need someone to cut through the clutter and help them make the right purchase because beauty shopping, whether its online or offline, is like trying to navigate a minefield. With NOUR, we want to curate the best-in-class products. Then add a layer of education and entertainment which simplifies things and makes it easy to understand and navigate the beauty ecosystem. We want beauty shopping to be an experience that encourages browsing and learning rather than 'here! this is the product, you have 40% off and 48 hours left to shop, now get on with it.' We want to change and disrupt the 'search and transactional' way beauty is bought online and drive it more with heart!

"Beauty shopping needs to be based on spontaneity, novelty, and discovery." NOUR aims to make beauty more discovery-oriented. What steps has it taken to incorporate this?

The current beauty commerce paradigm in the region is purely search and transactional, it lacks heart, it lacks meaningful content, and it is very vanilla. It continues to borrow heavily from the 1990s Amazon model of e-commerce, which doesn't encourage you to browse or discover new products or new formulations, it isn't equipped to tell the stories or explain the science. As a category, beauty lends itself really well to discovery and browsability.

Discovery is all about getting the shopper to the right product at the right time—and that happens through content. Content enabled e-commerce not only helps user stumble upon new categories and new products but also helps them understand how a product can add value to their life or help them solve a concern. The way NOUR as a platform is built is very different from traditional e-commerce apps.

The disruptive approach enables users to discover and interact and browse—every image, every video is shoppable. There's a lot of focus on storytelling and content that allows you to discover new brands and products and learn more about how they can benefit you and when you're ready, you can buy instantly at a click of a button—it's important that our user completes the journey from discovery to purchase without ever having to leave the app. Discover. Shop. Learn. Experience, that's what NOUR is!

You have an illustrious career that includes a tenure at Vogue. How has your experience there shaped the advent of NOUR?

Growing up, I was obsessed with beauty, when everyone my age was spending money on clubs and parties, I would save up to buy La Mer. My weekends would be spent inside the beauty section at malls where I would try a different set of beauty products every week. Vogue gave meaning and structure to my obsession. It defined my entire experience around beauty content and editorial.

At Vogue, I learned from the best—I worked alongside the biggest international brands and talent in the beauty industry. Discovering their craft and co-creating content with them was and will always be an invaluable experience. My time at Vogue serves as an inspiration for what we do now at NOUR, combining editorial beauty with e-commerce. At NOUR, we look at editorial in a slightly different way—while the old editorial was larger than life and mostly aspirational, with NOUR our focus is on the new kind of editorial, one that's achievable and shoppable!

With the huge rise in social media beauty trends, how do you think the perspectives associated with beauty and beauty products have changed in the last decade?

I've had a front-row seat to the dramatic shifts in the beauty industry over the past decade, largely driven by social media. The rise of social media platforms has democratized beauty and content in unprecedented ways, transforming both consumer behaviour and industry standards. When I look back a decade ago, it always bothered me how exclusionary beauty and fashion felt, you always needed to have a certain amount of money or the right skin tone or the right kind of profile to be considered beautiful. It's that whole 'you can't sit with us' mentality that was the norm.

Social media challenged these norms giving a voice to diverse groups who were previously underrepresented and really changed the narrative to "everyone's invited, everyone belongs." Social media also pushed the industry to become more transparent and dynamic. Consumers are now more informed than ever and they demand transparency from brands regarding ingredients, ethical practices, and sustainability. The thriving beauty community with millions of tutorials and reviews makes it easy for anyone to become their own beauty expert, fostering a more hands-on approach to beauty.

As a female entrepreneur, how has the UAE landscape influenced your journey with NOUR?

The dynamic and progressive business environment in the UAE provided the perfect backdrop for me to launch NOUR. The UAE's commitment to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly among women, has been incredibly empowering. Additionally, the cultural diversity and cosmopolitan nature of the UAE have allowed us to cater to a wide array of preferences and tastes, enriching our content and product offerings.