The new voices of fashion and beauty in Arab society are often on Instagram and TikTok rather than on a catwalk. Modash’s list of beauty creators in Israel, compiled by a commercial influencer-analytics platform, includes Arab creators with large followings. Their audience is there too. In the Israel Internet Association’s survey of May 2026, 97%1 of Arab women respondents said they use Instagram, against 86%2 of all women in Israel. Here is what the verified data says about the audience, the creators and the price, where it runs out, and what brands can do with it.

Instagram is the shop window

The survey was carried out in May 2026 and published in July. Among Arab women respondents, Instagram use is close to universal, and higher even than among all women in Israel, which is already very high. According to the survey, most Arab women users open Instagram every day, while Arab men use it less than Arab women.

Know the limits before these numbers go into a deck. The association did not publish the size of its Arab sub-sample, and Arab women are a subgroup within it, so the margin of error is probably wide. The figures are also self-reported. The direction is clear, but this is not a precise measurement, and the gap should not carry more weight than it can bear.

For fashion, beauty and accessories brands, the conclusion does not depend on the exact figure: when the audience is Arab women, Instagram is the shop window. The full offer belongs there, not just an advert: product photography, Stories and Reels in Arabic, visible prices and sizes, and an easy way to ask a question. In our view, a campaign translated from Hebrew at the last minute will struggle next to creators who speak to their audience in its own language and style.

TikTok: a wider audience, with men to the fore

On TikTok the gap with the population at large is wider still. 77%3 of Arab respondents reported using TikTok, against 59%4 of all adults in Israel, Arab citizens included. Here the gender pattern reverses: 87%5 of Arab men respondents use TikTok, against 70%6 of Arab women. The association notes that among men TikTok’s popularity is markedly higher, even compared with the general population.

The survey also reports daily use, but does not always say whether the rate is a share of all respondents or only of users, so we have left those figures out; they should not be presented as a share of the whole audience.

In practice: in categories aimed at men, such as trainers, sportswear and grooming, TikTok is the main stage and deserves its own plan, not a copy of the Instagram campaign. In campaigns aimed at women, TikTok is a strong supporting channel but no substitute for Instagram. Either way, the format is short video with a real person showing the product, not a brand film cut down to vertical.

The creators: a mostly Israeli audience, but not entirely

A creator who speaks Arabic speaks to an audience that does not stop at the border. According to Modash, in a snapshot from September 2026, 65.84%7 of beauty creator Razan Massarwe’s Instagram followers are in Israel, and for Noor Hbaish the share is about 75%8. The rest are outside Israel.

These are a commercial platform’s modelled estimates; they change all the time and are not research. The lesson holds: a follower count is not a count of potential customers. A brand that sells and delivers only in Israel pays for reach that partly lands on people who cannot buy from it. That can be acceptable, say for brand awareness, but it belongs in the sums from the start, not in a post-campaign discovery.

The market is also more organised than it looks. Beffect describes itself as a network of women influencers and bloggers from across the Arab sector, north to south, and WeLead shows campaigns on its site for the fashion chain S.wear and the skincare brand Reborn. These are the companies’ own presentations, not independent data, but a brand need not start from scratch.

What it costs

On price we have no measurement, only an estimate. In a January 2026 report on mako, Gadir Khatib of the agency Social Cube estimated that an Arab-society influencer will earn about ₪24,0009 a month, while her Jewish counterpart with the same number of followers can charge more than ₪50,00010 for exactly the same work.

Read this with care. It is the view of a market player with an interest in the subject, not a price survey. Nor is the comparison like for like: on the Arab side monthly earnings, on the Jewish side what can be charged. It shows the direction of the gap, not a rate card.

If the gap is near reality, an Arabic-language budget buys more creator work than the same budget in Hebrew. But cheaper is not automatically better value. What counts is how much of the audience is in your market, how many reach the site or the shop, and how many buy. In our view, a lower cost, if the estimate holds, is a reason to build long-term partnerships rather than buy scattered posts: a creator who works with a brand over time, for a fair fee, earns it a trust that isolated posts will not.

What the data doesn’t tell us yet

We found no verified data on the businesses of Arab fashion designers, on what Arab households spend on fashion and beauty, or on peak buying seasons. Claims that circulate in the trade, such as Ramadan and Eid being the peak season for fashion, did not survive our checks: the source we examined is old and does not say what it is quoted as saying, so we left them out.

That does not make them wrong; it makes them hypotheses to test in your own data: sales by region and by month, results by creator, and a campaign around the holidays compared with one in an ordinary period.

What it means for marketers

The Arab fashion and beauty audience is on Instagram and TikTok, agencies already work with the creators who speak to it, and those creators earn far less than Hebrew-language creators, by one market estimate. These are the steps we would start with:

  • Build your presence for women around Instagram in Arabic. A full offer, not a translated advert: product photography, Reels, prices and sizes, and replies in Arabic to direct messages.
  • Give TikTok a central place in men’s categories. Short video with creators showing the product, planned separately from the Instagram campaign.
  • Ask where the audience is before you ask how many followers there are. Ask creators for a screenshot of their audience insights by country, city, age and gender, and price the work on the audience in your market.
  • Measure sales, not just reach. A unique discount code and link for each creator, and a comparison of cost per sale between Arabic-language and Hebrew-language creators.
  • Build long partnerships, and let creators speak in their own voice. A brief that sets goals and limits rather than a translated script, with content signed off by someone on your team who reads Arabic.