Scent of change: How Indian perfumers are crafting desi fragrances
The Indian perfume market is veering away from attars and knockoffs. Now, local perfumers are crafting new, original scents. Take a whiff
Is it just us, or did every Secret Santa gifting group end up with at least one gift-wrapped perfume this season? Little vials of good fragrance used to be an expensive, imported luxury (It’s how we learnt to spell Guerlain and say Ver-SA-chay.) Indian scents, on the other hand, were either attars, strong deodorants or poor imitations of world-famous blends.
Over the last decade, that’s started to change. Brands such as Titan sell fragrances with such exotic names as Amalfi Bleu and Oud Luxe. Westside stocks its little bottles near the billing counters – the perfect last-minute grab. Nykaa’s website has a helpful country-of-origin filter and has 15 homegrown options. Most refreshingly, young Indian perfumers are creating boutique scents that are made in, and smell like, India.
What’s the playbook for success? Nobody nose. So, each brand is trying something new. Take a whiff at what’s been happening.
Top note
In Delhi, Dimple Fouzdar launched Maison de Fouzdar in September 2021 to develop niche scents for Indian buyers who wanted French-style concoctions with an Indian heart. “It was about creating a product at par with global standards, but not using synthetic ingredients, not doing mass production,” says Fouzdar.
Their bestseller: Santal Saffron, a blend of rare red sandalwood from Australia and Iranian saffron, priced at ₹13,999 for 100 ml of extrait de parfum. At around 20% to 40% of fragrance concentration, it’s more potent and longer lasting than the eau de parfums typically sold by international brands.
The brand doesn’t offer discounts – though it throws in testers with a purchase. “Our customers understand and appreciate perfumery and aren’t looking for a good deal or a cheap clone,” Fouzdar says. The brand has focused on richer notes and unusual pairings. Oud Imperial is made from white oud wood and musk. Oud Safran, with oud wood and saffron, is for men and women.
Fouzar says the brand has done well enough to have several clones among the competition. “I am not necessarily happy about it. But I understand why some people opt for cheaper versions,” she says. “It shows there’s conversation around Indian perfumes.”
Let us spray
For filmmaker and now full-time perfumer Krati Tandon, launching an Indian perfume brand was about holding on to a fast-vanishing tradition. Tandon’s family is from Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, home to the centuries-old craft of making attar (concentrated, fragranced essential oil). “Growing up, every direction we turned in our home town would smell of attar. But right before us, as we grew up, demand for it kept dwindling,” she says.
She and her filmmaker brother Varun Tandon hoped to start a perfume business when they retired. The pandemic sped up the schedule. The Tandons knew that Kannauj’s artisans were struggling during the lockdowns. “I told Varun, ‘Let’s tell their story now. Who knows if this craft will even exist by the time we retire’,” Tandon says.
They launched Boond in May 2021. The first perfume, Maati, aims to capture petrichor, or the smell of rain-soaked earth. Their father Pravin Tandon, a poet, took over the packaging – drawing on Indian motifs and composing verses of his own to go with the boxes. And where most foreign brands indicate eau De parfum, eau de toilette and such to indicate the strength of the fragrance, Boond simply bowed to what Indian buyers want. The label mentions that it is unisex, alcohol-free, will last four to six hours.
Mitti was a hit. Boond has since added rose, sandalwood, vetiver and jasmine perfumes to their range.
Going local
Manan Gandhi’s Bombay Perfumery puts a modern twist on old, familiar fragrances. Gandhi comes from a family of perfumers — their essential oils formed the base for several international scents. Gandhi also worked in Grasse, a small perfumers’ town in the French Riviera for a few years before returning to launch his brand in 2016.
India is consciously the focus. “We first take an Indian ingredient and then champion the fragrance around it,” he says. Their best-selling perfume, Calicut, is crafted around black pepper. Madurai Talkies draws on jasmine blooms. The brands aim, he says is also to “reconstruct Indian olfactory memories”. Hence, Chai Musk, with hints of ginger, lemongrass, “some milky elements, some nutty elements and cardamom”. The offerings cost ₹4,000 for 100ml of eau de parfum.
Meanwhile, Delhi-based Astha Suri’s brand Naso Profumi takes inspiration from ayurveda. Suri, a fourth-generation perfumer, launched the line in 2020, crafting familiar smells that are designed to smell good and feel therapeutic. The titles are straightforward, but evocative: Tamarind Infused in Bergamot, the tobacco-based Tabac, and Profumi Il Sesso (literally Scent for Sex), which is advertised as a “mild aphrodistic, with intoxicating properties, that dissolve emotional barriers and promote intimacy, while soothing the senses and calming anxiety”. Their Saffron Infused in Musk and Amber, Suri says is “inspired by the rich Kashmiri kesar and all that it can do to heal and smooth the human mind”. It costs ₹5,500 for 50 ml, and Suri says it’s their bestseller.
From HT Brunch, January 04, 2025
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