A violently sweet saffron and rose scent diffuses in our small seminar room, mellowing down my stressed-out classmates (or so I was told). What followed was different versions of: “Wow, what are you wearing?” The lady interviewing me and the man taking my mocha order even proceeded to name-drop luxury brands in an attempt to guess what I had on; 6,538 miles away from home, my attar entered the room before I did, as if announcing my Indian identity.
Fragrances are the most effective time capsules. Mogra? Your grandmum’s ghajra. Clove and cardamom? Chai at 5pm in a desi household. We associate places we frequent, books we love, men we’ve sworn off and our closest friends with scents that initiate a time skip to another moment. They become extensions of our personality and have been entangled with our culture and identity for years. For Mughals, the more complex your attar, the stronger your standing. Egyptians, too, used scented oils in divine rituals and took pride in their creation. It would be diminishing to say that a whiff of attar only carries fragrance. It’s weighted with history and the luxury industry is finally seeing it. Attars are no longer tucked away in forgotten corners of Delhi and Lucknow; they’re touring the world. From Tom Ford’s Oud occupying the highest shelf at Sephora to Jo Malone’s oil-infused fragrances and Byredo’s patchouli perfume oil, attar has gone global. Once looked down upon as “cheap,” it now graces the wrists of everyone who’s anyone.
As mass-produced perfumes have grown increasingly homogeneous, attars and ouds stand out for their complexity and depth of notes; an added advantage at a time when personalisation and DIY reign supreme. Their resurgence is also tied to a broader cultural shift: a return to tradition marked by Gen Z marrying younger, hemlines lengthening and conservatism making quite the comeback.
Alongside this renewed respect for heritage, growing concerns around clean beauty have played a significant role. CHEM Trust’s 2022 report, which revealed that 20 popular luxury fragrances contain endocrine disrupters that can dysregulate hormones, has prompted consumers to question (and reinvent) their relationship with scent. In contrast, attars, made from botanical ingredients and produced through slow, careful distillation, embody the art of slow perfumery. For a country with a grand olfactory legacy long reduced to a supplier of raw materials for international luxury houses, this renewed appreciation feels overdue.
More than anything, attars became a way of not losing myself in a foreign land. In a city I couldn’t yet call mine, I could still leave a trail that was. One that smelled like Chandni Chowk, where I first realised that the poorly documented origins of attar in Delhi were far from humble. I was told by the experienced distillers there that the Mughal ruler, Akbar, founded an entire ministry in Dilli 6 just to develop perfumery, so he could douse his body, his baths, even his furniture in scent. Perfumed vials of distilled flowers hung off wrists and waists like talismans. Chandni Chowk became the epicentre of that obsession, its attar shops passing down an olfactory archive that refuses to be forgotten.
