A Saudi Audrey Hepburn look and Dh1,220 makeup brushes: Waad Al-Turki's viral week

The Riyadh-based makeup artist has 2.3 million followers on Instagram

Waad Al-Turki's striking Audrey Hepburn makeup look has gone viral in Saudi on social media, but so has the price of her makeup brushes, which cost a staggering Dh1,250. Instagram / WaadMakeupArtist

Saudi Arabian makeup artist Waad Al-Turki has a huge fan following on Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter thanks to her themed makeup transformations (from Jasmine in Aladdin to making a woman look exactly like Barbadian star Rihanna).

This week, she's been all over Twitter trends in Saudi Arabia thanks to both one of her makeup transformations, but also because of her incredibly expensive makeup brushes.

The transformation 

Her latest makeup work sees a model shapeshift into legendary movie star Audrey Hepburn. The striking similarity (thanks to contouring, brows and perfectly applied eye makeup) has garnered nearly 100,000 likes on Instagram (far more than Al-Turki's average post), and has helped boost the hashtag #waadalturki (in Arabic), which was trending on Twitter on Saturday.

"What do you think of this look?" she asked her followers. "The look was really fun," she added, noting that the full tutorial can be found on her Snapchat account.

But then there's the price of her brushes...

Not all of the comments about Al-Turki on Instagram and Twitter this weekend have been positive however, with some fans bemused by the prices of one of her products.

She sold her makeup brush kits for SAR1,250 (Dh1,222) – and while makeup brushes are one of those things that cost more than you'd expect, more than a thousand dirhams is certainly unusual.

However, more than 5,000 boxes were bought in under two days according to Al-Turki, selling the product out, so there was clearly demand.

One Twitter user pointed out that Al-Turki would have pocketed more than 6 million Saudi riyal from the sale, saying "please let me be an influencer".

This Twitter user asked if, at more than Dh1,000, the brushes had some kind of magical power:

This Twitter account pointed out that most people use their hands to put on makeup anyway:

But many also pointed out that the brushes selling out meant there was demand, which ultimately means the price is right.

Here's an Instagram post from Al-Turki showing the boxes of the brushes ready to be shipped out (click to play):

Here are some of Al-Turki's most striking makeup looks and transformations, from Rihanna to Jasmine: