Scent and sensibility: Why perfume, today, is more than just a luxury

From the smoky swirl of oud in Emirati majlises to the rose-laced oils of India’s ancient attar traditions, scent rituals have long transcended the merely aromatic. They are carriers of identity, belonging, and memory. Passed down through gesture, presence, and the quiet intimacy of sensory inheritance, these scent rituals are now experiencing a renaissance. But this revival isn’t just about preservation. Across continents, time-honoured olfactory traditions are being reimagined—infused with hyper-personalisation, eco-consciousness, and a distinctly contemporary flair.

The Many Lives of Oud

At the heart of this global reawakening lies oud: the dark, resinous heartwood that has long served as the backbone of Middle Eastern perfumery. Once burned in sacred rites or worn as a signifier of social standing, oud is being reinterpreted by a new generation of niche perfumers. They are translating heritage into a language of modern luxury, one scent at a time.

Brands like Lootah Perfumes and Widian are reframing oud’s ancient gravitas with cosmopolitan refinement. Widian’s Sapphire, for instance, swathes the iconic wood in amber and vanilla, yielding a composition that is as grounded as it is globally minded. In contrast, ByMoudz’s breakout fragrance June Child bursts open with citrus before surrendering to oud’s smouldering depth—a reminder that even the oldest ingredients can feel startlingly new.

Others, like Oo La Lab and Odict, take a more minimalist approach. Here, oud is no longer the protagonist, but a supporting note. Odict’s The Alps, anchored by leather and sage, feels like a memory rather than a spectacle, offering restraint and elegance in equal measure.

Some perfumers approach scent as narrative. Mona Kattan’s Kayali line, for example, invites wearers to layer fragrances like chapters in a story, while Hind Al Oud treats perfume as poetic metaphor: musk as memory, incense as reverence, and the result is deeply personal.

Legacy houses such as Arabian Oud continue to uphold the craftsmanship that defines the genre, even as innovation propels the form forward. Newer labels like Saad Bashammakh—recently honoured as the Best Luxury Niche Perfume Brand in the Middle East—prove that artisanal perfumery can still command global attention.

Attar for a New Age

In the northern Indian city of Kannauj—often dubbed the “Grasse of the East”—attars have been distilled for centuries in much the same way: rose petals and vetiver roots coaxed gently into copper degs, the resulting oil left to age slowly in camel-skin flasks. These concentrated scents once perfumed the wrists of Mughal courtiers and wafted through marble palaces.

Today, Kannauj’s perfumers stand at a delicate crossroads: how to honour legacy while embracing the demands of a modern, ethically aware consumer. Sustainability is no longer a niche concern—it is foundational. Brands like Boond and Itrh are shifting away from endangered sandalwood in favour of native, responsibly harvested botanicals such as Himalayan cedar, Indian lavender, and ethically sourced rose.

Historian Rana Safvi recalls a time when foreign perfumes were rare, brought home by well-travelled relatives and treated as talismans. “They weren’t for us children,” she says. “Those precious bottles were reserved for our parents—used sparingly, treasured deeply.”

Now, she wears a bespoke attar from Gulab Singh Johrimal, a two-hundred-year-old perfumery nestled in the lanes of Old Delhi’s Dariba Kalan. “We’ve moved from mass-produced fragrance to something far more individual. People want a scent to reflect who they are—their mood, their skin, their memories.”

That shift is emblematic of a larger movement—one where fragrance becomes not just adornment but anchor. A sensory compass. A form of care. Personalisation, once a luxury, has become an expectation. And as ancient techniques evolve to meet modern values, they are not diluted. They are deepened.

Ritual as Resistance

Across Africa, scent has always been more than cosmetic—it has been cultural, spiritual, and deeply embedded in community. From the incense-filled temples of ancient Egypt to the herb-infused oils of West Africa, perfumery serves as ritual, rite, and rite of passage.

Sociologist Sangeeta Saxena explains how Berber traditions in North Africa blended rose waters and attars shaped by Mediterranean and Arab influences. In the West, shea and palm oils were infused with herbs and resin. Along the Swahili coast, Indian and Arab connections brought oud, jasmine, and ceremonial incense into local practice.

Now, contemporary African perfumers are reclaiming this lineage—transforming scent into a vehicle for storytelling and cultural resurgence.

Entrepreneurs like South Africa’s Marie Aoun of Saint d’Ici and Botswana’s Thamani Thothe of White Label Fragrances are at the forefront of this movement. Their compositions foreground indigenous ingredients and champion ethical sourcing, ecological awareness, and creative autonomy. In their hands, perfumery becomes both preservation and prophecy.

Fragrance in the Age of AI

In a digital age increasingly governed by algorithms, even fragrance—once the realm of intuition and instinct—is being reshaped by machine learning.

As detailed by the Istituto Marangoni, a private fashion and design institute in Milan, Carto, the AI assistant from fragrance giant Givaudan, has been collaborating with perfumers since 2019, offering scent pairings and compositions that blend chemistry with creativity. IBM’s Philyra, built with Symrise, uses deep learning to explore vast scent combinations—its formulations later refined by master perfumers like David Apel.

These tools aren’t displacing artistry; they’re expanding its frontiers. Brands like L’Oréal and IFF are using biometric data and neuroscience to tailor scents to specific emotional states—joy, calm, desire. EEG headsets developed by Emotiv and Yves Saint Laurent can now match consumers with fragrances that reflect their neuro-emotional profiles with accuracy.

Sustainability, too, is benefitting. AI enables brands like Puig to monitor environmental impact in real time, suggesting greener formulations and reducing waste. Startups like EveryHuman and NOS are democratising scent creation through AI-powered platforms that let users design bespoke fragrances—guided by data, but rooted in feeling.

In the end, the future of fragrance is not just high-tech. It is human. It is ancestral. It is intimate. As these ancient traditions are reborn in our labs and on our skin, the most ephemeral of art forms proves itself, once again, to be among the most enduring.

Lead image: Getty Images

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