Is it just me or do you also spiral a little every time you think of the mammoth adulation ‘chai’ fragrances, rooted in Indian spices, have soaked up since their global debut? Oh, well.
History is full of global fragrance houses bottling India’s raw materials into icons; spices, resins, florals, then selling them back to the world as luxury. But we’re not viewed as a luxury perfumery origin in the way Grasse or Milan is, even though we sit on this vast bank of raw materials and scent heritage. According to a study, India was the world’s second-largest exporter of essential oils in 2024; the world already buys our aroma-building blocks at scale.
Where’s the gap?
A few things can be true at once:
- We’ve exported materials more than brands.
- The story has been narrated through someone else’s lens. When “Indian notes” travel, they often get packaged as exotic shorthand, not treated as a living craft with regional nuance, technique and lineages.
- Our heritage hubs stay local, not urbanised. Places like Kannauj have distilled attars for centuries, but the ecosystem has struggled against modern competition. If the place isn’t visible, the luxury association doesn’t stick.
The need for visibility
“We’ve historically been poor at marketing ourselves, allowing other nations to build luxury narratives around ingredients that originated here. Now, as Indian perfumers begin telling their own stories without translating them through western frameworks, the world is finally recognising what already existed,” shares Pranav Kapoor, an 8th generation perfumer and founder of perfume tourism.
Over the past few years, the chef-turned perfumer avers that much of his efforts have gone into speaking about Indian perfumery through raw material exploration, sensory storytelling and transparent process, simply because people weren’t aware of what already existed here.
Echoing a similar perspective, Abdulla Ajmal, the CEO of Ajmal Group, sees this as a recognition problem. He explains, “We are investing heavily in storytelling and experiences, where people can walk the land, meet the makers and understand what truly goes into a luxury Indian perfumery.”
Astha Suri, founder and creative director at NASO PROFUMI, shares that the new-age crop of Indian fragrance founders and formulators are no longer content with being the source. “We want to be the signature.” Founded in 2020, the brand emerged as a champion of clean perfumery. “At the base lies the attar. Handcrafted in our own distilleries, it is the origin of every creation. In an era when the revival of attars had yet to enter mainstream discourse, we staked our identity in attar-infused fragrances, and wanted to reintroduced indigenous blends to the world,” she explains.
Where are we headed?
If recent reports are anything to go by, India’s fragrance landscape has shifted massively since 2024, led by premium fragrances, niche attars and experiential scents; the domestic fragrance category has a projected annual growth of 14 to 15 percent through 2033. This momentum is possibly being shaped by evolving perspectives in terms of the quality our country actually has to offer, the shift to cleaner choices and a rising culture of fragrance gifting.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: vogue.in
