The modern Indian perfumes are nothing like the attars of yesteryear

Perfumes need not have a whimsical name or have Angelina Jolie as their brand ambassador to be a good product

Kannauj—a city in Uttar Pradesh—is a perfume juggernaut. It is known for its cultivation of Damask roses and distilling attar for over 400 years, creating the raw material that forms the base for the perfumes, essential oils, candles and agarbattis most of you know and love. When you take a big whiff of Dior’s top-seller J’Adore Eau De Parfum, the warm, punchy fragrance of jasmine sambac that emanates is from flowers plucked from fields in Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Essentially most of your favourite scents—the ones you buy at the duty-free section at airports or the aisles of Selfridges and Sephora—are made up of cedar wood from Himachal Pradesh, rose attar from Uttar Pradesh and vetiver (khus) from Rajasthan. But for all this history, there weren’t too many fragrance brands from India that made a significant mark. Modern perfumers, however, are gradually working to change that.

Understanding your audience

Rajiv Sheth—whose family has been in the business of essential oils for generations—took what he had learnt from his childhood to Paris, where he studied perfumery and created scents for houses like Guerlain and Charabot in Grasse and the French capital. But every time he returned to India, he kept wondering why there wasn’t an Indian brand of the same calibre as the international ones, especially given the ingredients and expertise that was so readily available here.

“India has a rich cultural heritage around perfumes, but it was not modernised. With rising incomes and lifestyle demands of the younger generations, this category is definitely important to address with homegrown brands,” Sheth told The Established, which is why he came back in 2014 to create All Good Scents. It was a way to introduce the Indian market to high-quality, complex fragrances at more accessible prices. The scents aren’t just dupes of perfumes you find on shelves abroad—the perfumes were made to fit the Indian palette, with scents of jasmine, rose, lilac and wood as popular notes. Moreover, with price points of ₹1,190 for 50ml of the Rose Eau De Parfum, the message is clear: You don’t have to save these for a special occasion, this perfume can be worn everyday. “When we started out, there were few major brands in India with a total focus on perfumes as a category—they were always seen as line-extensions. But it’s a very nascent market, requiring time, large investments, education and India-centric offerings to build this category,” he says.

Taking things global

Indian perfumers, however, aren’t only creating scents for an Indian audience anymore. For example, take LilaNur Parfums, a collection of scents made with Indian ingredients and crafted with French perfumery traditions, co-created by Good Earth’s founder Anita Lal, but retailed exclusively at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. The perfumes are made from single-origin floral notes steeped in sandalwood oil, giving consumers abroad a taste of what Indian fragrances used to smell like back in the day.

Manan Gandhi created Bombay Perfumery in 2016 with an aim to cater to the modern Indian millennial. The price points are mid-range (₹ 3,900-4,100 for a 100ml eau de parfum) and the packaging aligns with what you’d expect from a European label: clean, minimal lines and lyrical names like “Madurai Talkies” and “Calicut”. While most ingredients are sourced from Madurai, Kannauj and Tirupati, the fragrances are made in Grasse by French perfumers that have been noses for brands such as Givenchy, Guerlain and Chanel. They’re telling you: we’re an Indian brand that can match up to the standards you’re used to from European manufacturers.

Aastha Suri, founder of NASO Profumi, also has a similar mission. “My brand is Indian perfume for a global audience,” she says. “To bring the luxury of attar to the global market was an essential step towards sustainable perfumery development we saw a gap in.” Suri is from Lucknow and has grown up around various versions of vetiver, saffron, sandalwood and rose attar, allowing her to train her nose to identify six essential oils that were further integrated with Italian oils and flora to suit a contemporary yet accessible palate. “The birth of these fragrances was achieved keeping jasmine, rose, lemon, sandalwood, oud, mint, basil, saffron and tamarind in mind. They form the primary ingredients that derive NASO’s palate,” she says. Suri has collaborated with JADE by Monica & Karishma to create a collection of bespoke scents, further signalling that the audience for high-end perfumes is converging with that of luxury couture. "When Astha presented us with this opportunity, where we jointly developed unisex fragrances that contemporize a homegrown ancient craft, we felt this resonated with our principles," shared Monica Shah.

Challenging perceptions

In India, the challenge lies in educating the audience on the importance and depth of Indian perfumery, and to attempt to change their minds to tell them—yes, this Indian perfume is as complex and spectacular as the French one you usually buy. Some brands are doing this via sampling (like All Good Scents, which launched a scent box to let customers experiment with), while others are hosting workshops and in-person events that offer the audience the chance to try something new. “At Bombay Perfumery, we've done a lot of workshops and pop-ups in the past that associate scent to different forms of expression, be it art, literature or food. This gives the audience an insight into what makes us different, and we're able to connect with them in a much more open, informal manner,” says Gandhi.

For Sheth, the pandemic helped improve customer acquisition and retention. “Several people bought our fragrances during the lockdown because they ran out of their regular international brands, so they discovered our fragrances,” he says. While that time has been helpful for some, a return to offline shopping will help. “Ninety per cent of customers make repeat purchases. Growth is major post the second wave of the pandemic and our followers have increased from 200 to 9000 today,” says Suri In order to develop an affinity for Indian perfume, one has to experience it. “ The way the perfume gets absorbed on Indian skin is a luxury no other scent can provide. The understanding of the nature of the Indian body with the climate it is put against is key. When we educate the customer, we convert the customer,” she says.

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