< Previous68 Something has been stirring underground in the Saudi fragrance world. Seeds of scented ideas planted long ago are fi nally coming to fruition, and along with the aromatic waft of fi ne fragrances, there’s a tangible sense of excitement in the air. For new growth to fl ourish, tendrils must germinate in the right environment, of course, and the budding verdancy we’re now witnessing – an unfurling of heritage, contemporary culture, perfume, and passion – is down to the nourishment of these new olfactory objectives. The fragrant crop of perfumes from these niche houses, so proudly native to the Saudi Kingdom, is something truly splendid to behold. Defying convention is brave in any art form. Doing so in a fragrance is surely a greater balancing act of expectation and subversion than any painter must perform. In a gallery setting, one might gaze quizzically at newness and walk away from a picture. In scented form, a contemporary evocation must live with the wearer all day, spend hours with them. On them. At times, seemingly emanating from their soul. That fragrance telling several tales, in fact: not only sending invisible clues of what dwells within the heart of the person wearing it, but, becoming a conversation between wearer and maker. Yet, of course it can sometimes be enough to simply smell a scent and be content in the bliss it brings. As with any artwork, when we trace the tendrils back to those makers and hear their stories, only then can we truly understand from whence these creative shoots have sprung. It deepens our appreciation, adding to the fruits of our own knowledge, and allows the scents to fully bloom in recognition on our skin. With this new generation of Saudi scent shapers, then, it behoves us not merely to appreciate their scents, but to dig deeper and wonder what led them to set up a fragrance house, discover what they are seeking to convey, and therefore learn how it speaks to us. Behind the stylish simplicity of the bottles housing the DNA collection by Kiswa World – named after the Kiswa cloth that covers the Kaaba in Makkah during Hajj – for example, perfumer Khalid Al-Turki has created a series of immediately captivating and utterly contemporary fragrant encounters. Khalid acknowledges the impetus behind launching the house was noticing “a gap in the demand for innovative and non- repeated fragrance designs”, and one senses that uniqueness. DNA I feels spacious, as though inhabiting a room designed by a minimalistic architect awaiting your presence. There’s a comforting sense of being happy in your own skin, while wearing it – being wrapped in a warm, fl uffy towel or sliding freshly bathed legs into silken sheets. The cool, bright whiteness sliced by streams of sunlight catching motes of dust dancing in the calm, lightly gilded stillness. DNA II could be a kaleidoscope of refracted petals infi nitely borne aloft, dancing as though coaxed by unseen hands into ribbons on the breeze; while DNA III takes a very different turn: heady, sensual, swaggeringly hypnotic, with a diva-esque, almost syrupy white fl oral aspect. Icy yet wrapped in velvet, there is a backbone of steel beneath the opulent drapery. KW Tipping Point Parfum, meanwhile, encompasses a duality of textures – even temperatures, somehow. Creaminess spiked beneath with spices – frosted notes melting to a sizzle, and in the Tipping Point Hair Mist, that scent is rendered more radiant, glossy, the epitome of that quiet luxury aspiration sweeping the fashion and beauty worlds. The interplay of textures, moods and temperatures within Kiswa World fragrances feels both subtle and complex – for Khalid is cleverly crafting spaces for people to inhabit the world of the perfumes they’re wearing, rather than the fragrances wearing them, because Kiswa World perfumes allow the wearer to breathe, granting them space to create their own scent memories. Khalid explains his process and how this modern alchemy became a reality. “In Kiswa World products, we have adopted a special diversity,” he explains. “Each collection or perfume product has a story of inspiration separate from it, and it embodies the product, the land from it, and its unique inspiration. It refl ects the vision of the designer and the product’s compatible extension of this distinct inspiration, so that you can accommodate everyone in the story of this product or collection.” This diversity resonates throughout “by the name given to it, its components, its fragrances, the story of its inspiration, the colours of the prints, its style…” And that creative harmony is then found “in the entire inspiration story of the product, until the fragrance matures with sound, sensitivity, and poetry and forms a cohesive, interconnected meaning, creating continuity in every spray of it to create a unique and real effect.” This poetic style of perfumery is nonetheless technologically advanced, utilising bespoke synthesised notes alongside the naturals, which he believes ensures “Kiswa World products are unique and distinctive, not duplicated and cannot be easily copied.” Indeed not, for wearing Kiswa World fragrances grants a feeling of escaping to another dimension – not a land that’s been prescribed, but feeling as though it’s been pulled from the deepest fathoms of your own fragrant wonderings. What does a perfume renaissance smell like? We’re witnessing one right under our noses. Equally infused with scent memories and modernity, these pioneering Saudi fragrance houses are shaping the future of scent PHOTOGRAPHY Cameron Bensley CREATIVE DIRECTOR Agata Wycichowska WORDS Suzy Nightingale 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 6821/04/2024 20:1469 Tipping Point Parfum, KISWA WORLD 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 6918/04/2024 22:1070 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7018/04/2024 22:1071 Talh Perfume, NOTA NOTA 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7118/04/2024 22:1072 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7218/04/2024 22:1073 Lūz Perfume, DL PERFUME 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7318/04/2024 22:10DNA II Perfume, KISWA WORLD 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7418/04/2024 22:1075 Rashat co-founder Khaled bin Mohammad Al-Thaneyan has previously commented on how “International companies tend to manufacture seasonal perfumes according to public taste. For me, this limits creativity and the splendour of innovation in the industry.” Now with stores across the Saudi Kingdom, risking newness has rooted great success for this fl ourishing fragrance house. Presented with confi dent simplicity in their bottles, the fragrances are simultaneously complex yet allowed to speak for themselves as they unfurl on the skin. Rashat R3 EDP proffers delight via a sensation of Marabou feather slippers, peony petals, and ‘dolls’ heads’, which might seem a peculiar way to describe a scent, but perhaps conjures a sense of its wonderfully abstract nature. At once nostalgic – a dressing-up box invitation to reconnect with one’s own creative playfulness – and yet intriguingly unfamiliar. In Rashat Mimosa a scent memory of eating almondy marzipan fi zzes to fuzzy peach skin nuzzles; and within Rashat Euphoria one could imagine a handful of golden glitter joyously thrown in the air, radiant, gleaming with a tingle of warmth, and immediately uplifting – like hearing the laughter of a loved one in the breeze. The Rashat fragrances are, by turn, gleeful, contemplative, and moving, and Khaled confi rms that “Perfumes, to us, serve as a medium for sharing stories and memories. Olfactory memories rewind the tape, invoking people and places across time. Memories of fathers and mothers inspire our fragrances, like Misk 2, where we blend the essence of masculinity embodying fatherhood with a nurturing scent symbolising the compassionate essence of motherhood.” Refl ecting on the nature of bottling an idea, and the meticulous methodology that’s been part of Rashat’s success, Khaled explains “Everything is a product of our ideas and creative process. We bring artistic sensibility to perfume creation, shaping ideas into stories with carefully selected ingredients. After weaving intricate details with industry expertise, we present the concept to master perfumers for harmonisation, creativity, and fi nalisation.” Building their contemporary fragrant empire on the Triangle of Success – desire, ability, and opportunity – Rashat fragrances have gone from the seeds of an idea, through the intricacies of germination, fi nally harnessing the zeitgeist from those tender seeds of change, “Fuelled by ambitious desire, unrestrained ability, and favourable opportunities” through which their perfume house emerged, Khaled reveals. “Motivated by noble ambition, we aspire to contribute to the Kingdom’s success,” he remarks, “reshaping perfume concepts nationally and globally, showcasing Saudi Arabia’s richness, capability, and empowerment in line with Vision 2030.” There is a rightful pride radiating which adds an electrifying energy to this olfactory movement – a sense this garden of fragrant new ideas is bursting forth and propagating offshoots that aren’t merely waiting to see what happens in the future but shaping it right now. Take the example of NOTA NOTA – a revolutionary young startup brand that began in 2014, when founder and CEO Abdullah Bahabri “decided it was time to do something original.” Designed as an at-home blending experience for users to craft their own bespoke fragrances, “The Journey of creating NOTA NOTA was all about creating a futuristic, well-designed, and wonderful user experience product,” he recalls. Now expanding with ready-made fragrances also available, it is worth noting again how vital it was for NOTA NOTA to take up their own space in the scent world. “Most of the perfume brands start their thinking process with a question ‘what’s the trend today?’” Abdullah observes. “But this is not the case for NOTA NOTA. We start our thinking process by asking ourselves ‘What story from the Kingdom do we want to tell via our new perfume?’ This makes the NOTA NOTA perfume collection unique, original, and authentic.” Samar, for example, enchantingly weaves inherited scent memories with an elegiac style of perfumery that calls to the past while beckoning the future. Inspired by “desert nights and breezes of fi re – or, as the desert people here call it, ‘daw’, around which they surround themselves in warmth, and exchange some desert tales on a late night” it fuels the imagination via hot, smoky, birch tar and lapsang souchong tea leaves thrown into glowing coals, with shared memories, tales over whispered over still-warm embers. Later a colder cinder scent, like walking into the room the morning after a large gathering, the ash scattered like fond recollections on the wooden fl oor. In a fascinating artistic collaborative offshoot, NOTA NOTA worked with high-end footwear designers Tamashee for the fragrance Tamashee X NOTA NOTA. Inspired by Tamashee’s 1440 H collection, which was in turn a celebration of Al Qatt art, native to the region of Asir, the “composition of this scent is inspired by trees and fl owers used in fl ower crowns and incenses in the region.” Yet nothing in these contemporary evocations is obvious or overt. Instead, there’s a mellifl uous, surrealistic sense of fl oating, with wispy clouds of smoke refl ected in the stillness of a silver lake, citrus segueing to a sigh of contentment amid a woven tapestry of fl oral emblems. NOTA NOTA Talh – the name from a tree well known for its “magnifi cent smell which Bedouins related to in their trips, as they enjoyed its shade and the cool air under it” again takes a unique twist, smelling green and spiky at fi rst with a sour bite like green mango skins, before suddenly becoming dewy, sheltering, a verdant embrace. And for NOTA NOTA Ar’, green Angelica evokes the chlorophyllin rush of leaves growing, ripples of resinous verdancy that feel shiny and wet yet humid, like rain on hot terracotta tiles, with a dry down that could be an osmanthus tree blooming or apricot jam slathered on toasted bread, depending on where your own scent recollections lead you. Abdullah’s creativity and passion veritably shines as he explains how important it felt for him to create a brand that introduces Saudi to the global perfume scene. “I believe Saudi has much to offer to the perfume industry,” he asserts, “especially in innovation, ingredients, and perfume stories. Arabs have a special relationship with perfumes, and perfume is deeply rooted in the culture thousands of years back – Islamic scholars introduced the world to scientifi c inventions in distillation and extractions. So, NOTA NOTA was founded to bring Saudi back to the scene with its innovative ideas and concepts.” And that authenticity of storytelling though fragrance is foremost shown “for example, when we decided to design a perfume inspired by a night in the desert around a fi replace, we sent the perfumer a piece of samar wood. This is the best wood in Saudi to be used in fi replaces and has romantic memories in Saudis’ minds, and we asked the perfumer to build the perfume around samar smoke.” And in another case when “we asked the perfumer to visit a Saudi destination to get the vibes of the placeusing 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7521/04/2024 21:1276 ‘headspace technology’ to capture the actual living odour of a plant, ingredient, or place”, rather than someone separate from the Saudi culture attempting to imagine it. Echoing this sentiment of genuine stories faithfully told through contemporary Saudi fragrances, the co-founder of DL Perfume, Deemah AlMusaad comments how “my sister and I were inspired to create DL Perfume after our mother’s passion of creating perfumes.” They grew up surrounded by scent, “watching our mum producing her own perfumes – and one of the perfumes she created stood out to us… her presence was known through that scent.” This memory evolved to become their fi rst perfume, Omaz, which was “created entirely in our own home!” Capturing the soul of this incredible woman, who adored beauty and sophistication, it was vital they created it themselves to get it right. “She loved that her perfume was not like others and that the scent of her perfume preceded her when she entered and after she left,” they share, so “the scent of this perfume brings details and memories. She selected the fi nest types of oud and musk and shared it with those close to her. And from here, the story began.” The DL Perfume duo started by experimenting: “mixing various oils until we reached a result we were satisfi ed with”. They knew this fi rst step into the perfume world’s global stage had to be done by them. “For our other fragrances, we collaborated with perfumers based in Saudi and in France that are well known to produce the fi nest raw materials,” Deemah continues, explaining the siblings “also wanted to create a scent that honoured our late father.” In a touching and strikingly personal scent memory of the great man, she recalls “his enjoyment of sitting around the fi replace as rain was pouring outside, ironically during the summertime”. And so “we created a perfume that featured 12 types of wood that would mimic the smell of a fi replace and added hints of lemon to bring out a bit of freshness”. Having immortalised their beloved parents in fragrance form, the scented siblings decided they also needed signature creations to share with the world at large. “Dee and Luz were named after my sister and I. Dee features a strong leather smell with hints of tobacco, whereas Luz features a fresh smell of vanilla with musk base notes.” What transcendental alchemy it must be to create an olfactive autobiography. And yet, perhaps we each do that a little, while wearing a scent that makes us dream. Dee proffers a melding of rounded spices and the sense of sliding strong hands into violet kid-leather gloves lined in silk – of writing letters from the heart in dark swirls of ink dusted with orris powder. In Luz, there’s the sensation of a honeyed sweetness, a fi eld of white fl owers set ablaze by the golden hour, while Wispy also offers a gilded light, but this time captured within a polished dark wood table bearing a golden goblet, in which you can see your lips refl ected as you near it to sip the nectar within – a self-embrace in scent. Authenticity via cultural storytelling is the nourishment needed to continue this blooming of contemporary Saudi fragrance houses, and it must necessarily spring from those who have actually lived the tales they tell, and seek to use sophisticated, contemporary styles of perfume making while still grounded in the respect for their heritage. Such fragrances are distinguished, as DL Perfume put it, “by not being subject to fashion lines, by existing continuously,” and by standing apart from mass-produced global fashion brands “because of their specifi city, and as they are not widely promoted.” And though these modern Saudi brands may choose not to bling their boxes out, they are nonetheless utterly luxurious, being made with love and an attention to detail that one senses truly comes from the heart. “Because we built our house from rags to riches, every great achievement had an ambitious dream,” DL Perfume note, and as such “required the best perfume boxes to complement them, so the packaging of these perfumes was appropriate for you and suitable for presenting luxurious gifts.” To showcase their unique and emotionally redolent offerings, “all of our fragrances are deliberately centred around the concept of memories, places and people, with each fragrance having different characteristics to it.” And they say they are also proud to be a charitable merchant, with a percentage of sales going to the Nahda Association. “We believe in the great role of women in society, so we are honoured to cooperate with the Nahda Association to empower women and contribute to the renaissance of society and the nation,” they affi rm. Most of all, they add, “Our purpose as DL Perfume is to create fragrances that emotionally and spiritually bring people together through memories.” Each of these Saudi houses has its own distinct character, but what unites them, beyond the abounding newness, is the founders’ enthusiasm and pride for their heritage. Rashat’s founder, Khaled, puts it quite simply. “We are proud to be a 100 per cent Saudi Arabian brand,” he declares, and describes the most important aspect of their inspiration stemming from the fact they are “an authentic brand immersed in Saudi culture. Behind each perfume is a story full of passion, made with love and innovation. Our innovative spirit goes beyond crafting a unique olfactory experience; it’s about creating a product that resonates with everyone’s senses, settling in their hearts. It becomes a compound of all fragrances, a beloved essence for every soul!” It should be the start of a discourse on the contemporary Saudi fragrance industry as a whole – defi antly refusing to copy trends and striding out bravely to tell their own stories. A sentiment echoed by each of these Saudi perfume pioneers is that fragrant facsimiles become faded and dull. It is native voices and diversity the global fragrance industry now needs – and which perfume-lovers the world over are desperate to discover. The ‘golden age of perfumery’ is not a defi ned era, and the phrase is hotly contested between those who assert it must be reserved for 17th century innovations, while others say the scientifi c advances of the 19th century should hold that claim. Others declare the ’70s and ’80s as true turning points in perfumery. Whichever argument you hold with, whether centuries or decades ago, they are nonetheless in the past. Dormant, over-copied, or dead. Meanwhile, genuinely exciting ideas are budding in the fragrance world again, and they are rooted in Saudi. These scented seeds of encouragement, blown on a wind of change, are inspiring others – cultivating further growth, new shoots, and a fragrant future that’s now thrillingly awoken and wildly blooming. 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7618/04/2024 22:1077 DNA I Perfume, KISWA WORLD 066-081_VISION_VOL2_FRAGRANCE-MS.indd 7718/04/2024 22:10Next >