Is makeup haram?

Kohl along the eyes, color on the lips, henna on the hands: Muslim women have adorned themselves for fourteen centuries, and many still wonder whether it pleases Allah. The answer of the Quran and the Sunnah is joyful. Makeup is halal. Allah created beauty and loves it, the Prophet ﷺ praised kohl and wore it, and the earliest interpreters of the Quran counted eye makeup among the adornment a woman may show.

Is makeup haram in Islam?

The Quran answers those who forbid beautiful things with a question of its own:

قُلۡ مَنۡ حَرَّمَ زِينَةَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلَّتِيٓ أَخۡرَجَ لِعِبَادِهِۦ وَٱلطَّيِّبَٰتِ مِنَ ٱلرِّزۡقِ

“Say: who has forbidden the adornment of Allah, which He brought forth for His servants, and the good things He provides?”

Quran 7:32

No verse of the Quran and no sound hadith forbids cosmetics. The jurists’ rule is that things are permitted unless a text forbids them (al-aṣl fī al-ashyāʾ al-ibāḥa, الأصل في الأشياء الإباحة), and adornment (zīna) is named in the Quran as a gift.

The Prophet ﷺ once warned that no one with an atom’s weight of pride in his heart would enter Paradise. A man worried aloud: he liked his clothes to be fine and his sandals to be fine. The Prophet ﷺ answered:

«إِنَّ اللَّهَ جَمِيلٌ يُحِبُّ الْجَمَالَ»

“Allah is beautiful and loves beauty.”

Sahih Muslim 91a

Then he explained that pride means rejecting the truth and looking down on people. Loving beauty is part of faith; the danger lies in arrogance, and that lives in the heart.

Did the Prophet ﷺ and the early Muslims wear makeup?

The Prophet ﷺ recommended kohl. “The best of your kohl is ithmid,” he said, “for it clears the sight and makes the lashes grow” (Sunan Abi Dawud 3878, graded sahih). Al-Tirmidhi records that he kept a kohl pot and lined each eye three times at night (Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi 2048, which al-Tirmidhi graded hasan gharib and al-Albani weak). Kohl was worn in his community by women and men alike, and it remains part of Muslim adornment from Morocco to Bengal.

Henna colored hands, nails and hair. ʿAisha reported that when a woman passed a letter to the Prophet ﷺ from behind a curtain, he remarked that a woman would have colored her nails (Sunan Abi Dawud 4166, graded hasan by al-Albani and weak by others). The colors of nail polish carry on that custom; see Is nail polish haram?

Muslim civilization also treated beauty as a science. Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī (d. c. 1013), the great surgeon of Córdoba, devoted the nineteenth treatise of his medical encyclopedia, al-Taṣrīf, to cosmetics as a branch of medicine. He described deodorants, hand lotions, hair-removing preparations, hair dyes, and perfumed sticks rolled and pressed into molds, an early ancestor of the lipstick.

Can women wear makeup in public?

Some scholars hold that a woman should keep makeup for her home, her husband, and gatherings of women. They read the command in Sūrat al-Nūr that women should not display their adornment, and the warning against the display (tabarruj) of the age of ignorance (33:33). This is a recognized opinion, and women who follow it do so in good faith.

The same verse of Sūrat al-Nūr, however, carries its own exception:

وَلَا يُبۡدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنۡهَا

“And let them not display their adornment, except what normally appears of it.”

Quran 24:31

The Companions and their students explained what “appears.” In the commentary of al-Ṭabarī (d. 923), Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him) names the face, the kohl of the eye, the dye of the hand, and the ring; Mujāhid gives kohl, dye, and rings, and Qatāda kohl, bracelets, and rings. Al-Ṭabarī himself concluded that the exception means the face and hands, with their kohl, rings, bracelets, and dye. The earliest interpreters of the Quran counted eye makeup and colored hands among the adornment a woman may show in public. Tabarruj, in the classical commentaries, is a brazen self-display meant to draw desire. Everyday makeup worn with dignity belongs to the permitted adornment. The same reasoning applies to the headscarf, discussed in Is hijab mandatory in Islam?

Is makeup haram for men?

Kohl was a man’s adornment as much as a woman’s, and the Prophet ﷺ wore it. Skincare, concealer, and grooming that helps a man look rested and well are halal.

Some people cite the hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ cursed men who imitate women and women who imitate men (Sahih al-Bukhari 5885). The scholars tied that imitation to custom. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 1449) wrote in Fatḥ al-Bārī that the form of dress “differs with the custom of each land,” and later Shāfiʿī jurists made local custom the measure of what belongs to men and to women. For Muslims whose gender does not fit the customs they were raised in, see Is being transgender haram?

Can I pray or make wudu with makeup on?

Makeup does not break wudu, and you may pray in it. When you make wudu, the water should reach the skin of the face (5:6). In the majority view, products that form a water-resistant film, such as waterproof mascara or long-wear foundation, should be removed first. Powders, blush, and ordinary creams let water through and need no special care. Some scholars excuse a thin layer altogether, as explained in the article on nail polish, and the steps of wudu are set out in How to make wudu.

A closing word

Adorning yourself can be an act of gratitude. You take care of the face Allah gave you, you greet others with a pleasant appearance, and you remember who made you:

وَصَوَّرَكُمۡ فَأَحۡسَنَ صُوَرَكُمۡ

“He shaped you, and made your shapes beautiful.”

Quran 64:3

Let your makeup be light on your heart: worn with thanks, free of pride, and never a burden you carry to win anyone’s approval but His.