L’Oréal Luxe and Lancôme cosmetics have announced that Tunisian model, Hanaa Ben Abdesslem is the new spokesmodel for the brand. She is the first Muslim model that the beauty brand has selected.

The Muslim model was recently featured in Lancôme’s Teint Idole Ultra 24h foundation campaign alongside fellow model Arlenis Sosa, and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine in the UK in January.

Hanaa is 22 and according to L’Oreal has ‘quickly become an important face for international fashion’. A native of Nabeul in Tunisia, she studied civil engineering before entering in modelling.

According to her website, Ben Abdesslem was scouted by IMG models after entering a Lebanese TV program (similar to ‘Project Runway’ in the US and the UK). Meeting another influential Arab woman, Sophie Galal, who ‘shared Ben Abdesslem’s view about exposing the challenges of the modelling profession in the Arab world’ also helped to accelerate her career.

Lancôme made these comments: “Hanaa perfectly embodies the most contemporary of beauty, a beauty with a rare charisma. She has courage, almond, feline eyes, and carries the French elegance, this femininity is both soft and sensual [like a Lancôme woman].”