Huda Beauty × Sol de Janeiro · a self-initiated collaboration
From desert to beach.
Middle Eastern luxury meets Brazilian warmth — in one sunset.
17:48 · The idea
Two brands that sell warmth, from opposite ends of the world.
Huda Beauty is Dubai: oud, gold, glamour that photographs. Sol de Janeiro is Rio: butter-soft skin, colour, a scent you notice before you see the jar. Both sell the same feeling — warmth — and neither has ever said it in the other’s language.
The collaboration lives in the one hour they share: sunset. It starts in the dunes and ends at the sea, and every surface of the launch is placed somewhere along it — the jars, the boxes, the feed, a billboard in Dubai, a bus shelter in Rio, a counter in the mall.
- Collection
- Desert Oud Body Cream · Noor Sunset Cream
- Touchpoints
- Packaging, 3D, key visuals, social, out of home in two cities, retail, pop-up, PR, rollout
- Tools
- Illustrator, Photoshop, Blender, Higgsfield, Claude
- Status
- Self-initiated concept. Not commissioned by or affiliated with Huda Beauty or Sol de Janeiro
17:55 · The codes
Start from what each brand already owns.
Before a single frame, an inventory — so the collaboration borrows each brand’s codes instead of inventing around them.
From Huda Beauty
- The lowercase wordmark: bold “huda”, light “beauty”
- Dubai — the brand’s home and its light
- A founder who started as a make-up artist
- Glam that is made to be photographed
From Sol de Janeiro
- The round tub with the wrap-around label — the Bum Bum jar
- The script wordmark, set in a curve
- Scent first: gourmand, warm, worn on the skin
- Rio — colour, beach, the body at ease
Sol de Janeiro’s jar. Huda’s night.
Five colours, sampled from one sunset.
- Pearl Nude#F5EFE8
- Soft Sand#E7D3BE
- Blush Rose#E8B4B0
- Champagne#D9B77A
- Warm Bronze#8B5A3A
18:03 · The creams
Two creams. One for each end of the sunset.
The jar is the Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, one to one — the shape the world already reaches for. A collaboration doesn’t redesign the icon; it puts its own words on it. What goes in, and what the label says, comes from the desert.
The desert end
Desert Oud Body Cream
عود الصحراء
Rich Arabian oud in creamy Brazilian butters — warm, deep, for after dark. A glossy toffee-bronze jar, the colour of the dunes in the last light.
The beach end
Noor Sunset Cream
نور الغروب
Noor means light. A softer, floral-inspired scent on the same butters — the sky over the sea, just after the sun goes. A soft pink jar.
18:10 · The making
From a drawing to a jar.
Each step answers one question before the next one is allowed to ask its own.
01
The drawing
A woman at rest in the dunes, a crescent moon over her. Drawn in Illustrator, inside the oval every pack carries.
02
The reference
The Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, 240 ml — measured, not guessed: lid band, belly, base, the three lines of the label.
03
The label
Sol de Janeiro’s label grammar with his words: the brand line, the name in a condensed grotesque, the claim, his oval in the emblem, the Arabic.
04
Clay
The jar as a form, before any material. Does the silhouette still say Sol de Janeiro?
05
Structure
The mesh underneath — the lid seam, the label band, the radius of the shoulder.
06
The jar
Glossy toffee-bronze, the label printed on a white satin lid. Now it can turn.
Two marks, one rule book.
A collaboration is read in the space between the logos. On the carton the two marks are built into the medallion the way Sol de Janeiro builds its own: huda beauty across the sky where SOL stands, Sol de Janeiro across the middle where Janeiro runs, the motto beside it — and in the picture, where the original has Sugarloaf and two surfers, his women: the one resting in the dunes for Desert Oud, the one with the hibiscus for Noor Sunset, the sun rising behind them. And Sol de Janeiro’s own motto, “Sua Pele, Nossa Praia” — your skin, our beach — becomes “Sua Pele, Nosso Pôr do Sol”: your skin, our sunset. On both cartons it is written in Arabic: the desert brand signs the beach brand’s motto in its own language.
- Order
- huda beauty first, Sol de Janeiro second — the guest names the host.
- Height
- Both marks at the same optical height, never the same pixel height.
- Clear space
- One and a half cap-heights around each mark and around the ×. Nothing touches.
- The ×
- Lighter than either mark, on their optical centre line.
- One ink
- Sol de Janeiro’s charcoal for the type; one accent per cream from his palette — bronze for the desert, rose for the beach.
One word, corrected.
In version one both jars carried “عود الصحراء” — Desert Oud — because the Noor label was made from the Oud file. A reader of Arabic sees it at once, and in Dubai that is most of the audience. Noor Sunset now says “نور الغروب”: the light of the sunset.
Version one
عود الصحراء
Desert Oud — on the wrong jar
Version two
نور الغروب
The light of the sunset
The drawings
Desert, then beach.
Each pack carries a drawing in an oval. Desert Oud: a woman at rest in the dunes, a crescent moon over her. Noor Sunset: a hibiscus in her hair, palms and sea behind.
They are the two ends of the sunset the collaboration is named after, and here they ink themselves in that order.
On the pack.
Each drawing sits on the face of its box inside the same oval — one lockup, one grid, two grounds.
Drawings and packaging: Ameer Al-Ayyash.
18:16 · The campaign
One frame, two ends.
Two sets built in Blender, not generated: a dune field at golden hour and a wet beach just after sunset. The packs stand in the sand with real contact shadows and their own reflections. One sunset, two ends of it.
18:21 · The feed
The launch, in the feed.
Built the way Huda Beauty posts: one strong picture, one bold line, the product big. Every picture is a Blender render — the packs standing in the dune and beach sets — or the cartons themselves; nothing generated.
No engagement figures: a concept has no reach to report.
18:26 · Two cities
It sets in Dubai. It lands in Rio.
Out of home follows the sun across the map: the launch frame on Sheikh Zayed Road at dusk, the beach frame in a Copacabana shelter the evening after — in Portuguese: “O pôr do sol na sua pele”, the sunset on your skin.
The Dubai board plays eight seconds of the campaign film; when the wave breaks through the dunes, the spray turns white and opens on both creams at sunset, one in the dune and one at the waterline, the line and the marks fade in, hudabeauty.com. Footage: Shirin David, tour visuals — concept use only. The Rio street scene was generated in Higgsfield, no people; the artwork is placed in perspective.
18:31 · The store
Walk from the desert to the beach.
The pop-up is the campaign as a room, built in Blender at full scale for a mall concourse — twelve by eight metres. You enter through the medallion arch; the floor itself is the idea: sculpted sand terrazzo on the Desert Oud side flows through a raised foam line into glossy blush resin on the Noor Sunset side. Between them, the sunset wall and the testing counter.
01
The arch
The Sol de Janeiro medallion ring as a doorway, a medallion either side.
02
Desert Oud wall
Three backlit arched niches in gold plaster, fully merchandised.
03
The sunset wall
The campaign as a wall: the engraved medallion where the dunes become the wave, gold running into blush, the line in English and Arabic, the testing counter in front.
04
Noor Sunset wall
The same system in blush, on the beach side of the floor.
05
The photo moment
A 1.6-metre jar half sunk in a dune — and its twin at the waterline.
06
The gift bar
Where the cartons are wrapped like a sunset. The partnership is engraved into every brass counter.
Walkthrough — cut from the Blender renders, no people in the store by design.
The counter display.
For the doors that do not get a pop-up: one freestanding fixture, 1.8 metres, that carries the whole campaign. The arch is the medallion ring in brushed brass; the face is the engraving — dunes on the left, the wave on the right, one sun. Three dune-carved plinths hold the full size, the travel size and an open tester. The partnership is engraved into the brass base.
18:36 · The gift
Open it like a sunset.
The carton is Sol de Janeiro’s Bum Bum Cream box, taken over one to one — the medallion, the two diagonal bands, the swallows, the name in condensed caps, the brush script — with his drawing in the medallion, his colours on the board and his words in every line.
- 01
Weeks −3 to −1
Golden hour
Dune frames with no product. A countdown in the hour the campaign is named after — posted at sunset, Dubai time.
- 02
Launch week
The desert end
Desert Oud first. Sheikh Zayed Road, the pop-up in the mall, the gold box to creators in the region.
- 03
Week +1
The beach end
Noor Sunset lands. Copacabana shelters, the beach frame, the pink box to creators in Brazil.
- 04
Weeks +2 to +6
Every evening
One post at local sunset, wherever the audience is — the collection follows the sun round the world.
What we would measure
- Share of voice in launch week, Dubai and São Paulo
- Saves and shares per post, not likes
- Sell-through by cream — does the desert or the beach win?
- Creator box → post rate
No figures: it is a concept, so there are none to report.
18:41 · Two rounds
Version one was six boards.
The idea held. The boards didn’t carry it far enough — so version two kept everything that worked and rebuilt the rest.
Version one · February 2026
Boards two to four are not shown: they carried third-party footage and generated people, and version two works without either.
- Kept
- The line, the sunset, the palette, Playfair and Montserrat, both creams, both drawings, the store and the pop-up.
- Built
- Both jars in 3D, one to one on the Bum Bum Cream; the carton on the Bum Bum carton; both sets in Blender; the feed; the Dubai billboard; the pop-up as a full 3D store; a rollout.
- Corrected
- The Arabic on the Noor jar.
- Removed
- Invented engagement numbers and every generated person. The film stays on the billboard, cut down and credited.
From desert to beach.
One sunset, two creams, every surface in between.
Concept, art direction, drawings, packaging, 3D and design: Ameer Al-Ayyash. Self-initiated.
Huda Beauty and Sol de Janeiro are trademarks of their owners; this project is not affiliated with, endorsed by or commissioned by either brand.
Campaign film and stills: Shirin David, tour visuals, used for concept purposes only. The desert and beach sets and the pop-up store are built and rendered in Blender. The Dubai and Rio street scenes were generated in Higgsfield — no people — with the artwork placed in perspective. The jar follows the Brazilian Bum Bum Cream 240 ml one to one, as a collaboration would; the label design is his. All illustration is drawn work.
A self-initiated collaboration between Huda Beauty and Sol de Janeiro: two body creams, one sunset from the dunes to the sea — and every surface in between, from the jar to a billboard in Dubai and a bus shelter in Rio.
- Project
- Self-initiated collaboration concept · unofficial
- Role
- Concept, drawings, packaging, 3D and campaign — every department
- Year
- 2026
- Disciplines
- Campaign concept, Brand research, Illustration, Packaging and dielines, 3D product visualisation, Key visuals, Social launch system, Out of home, Retail experience, Visual merchandising, PR and rollout
- Tools
- Illustrator, Photoshop, Blender, Higgsfield, Claude
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