Kannauj, India — Gopal Kumar pulled apart the flower bulb and pointed to where the roots of the petals had turned slightly black on the inside. This is the time when the amaranth smells best and is ready to be picked, he said. He then picked a pink rose and inhaled it. “You can only find this smell in Kannauj,” he said.
Kumar has been planting flowers outside Kannauj – a sleepy town on the fertile Ganges plains in northern India – for 50 years. Its flowers are used in the manufacture of attar, which are natural perfumes produced by distilling flowers, herbs, plants or spices onto an essential oil that takes on the scent of the raw material.
Kannauj was a developed kingdom in northern India, famous for its production of itar using an ancient method called dig-pakpa. This is a slow and laborious process of hydro-distillation, devoid of all the modern equipment that survives in hundreds of small distilleries throughout Kannauj and its surrounding towns.
Despite the long heritage of perfumes and scents, economic liberalization in the late 1980s led to a period of decline in India’s etiquette industry as cheap, alcohol-based perfumes were introduced from the West. Until the 1990s, there were 700 distilleries in Kannauj, but their numbers declined to 150 to 200 by the mid-2000s. In an attempt to compete on price, some manufacturers began using alcohol as a base instead of the more expensive sandalwood oil, degrading the quality and purity of the products.
After liberalisation, rather than selling directly to consumers, the vast majority of perfumes and essential oils produced in India were exported to other companies – either as an input into the perfume and cosmetics industries in the West or for the tobacco industry. Rose water is one of the ingredients in chewing tobacco.
But in the past few years, many young Indian entrepreneurs, mostly women, have noticed a gap in the market between these homegrown artisanal skills and India’s thriving consumer culture, and a new crop of homegrown brands have emerged.
A new wave of fragrance
Boond Fragrances is one such company, founded in May 2021 during the pandemic by sisters and brother Karti and Varun Tandon, to help preserve and raise awareness of Kannauj’s perfumery traditions and support local artisans.
“Our father was a perfumer and a home perfumer,” Karti Tandon explained at her family home in Kannauj. “We grew up among perfumers and perfume factories in Kannauj, and you really understand what’s going on. But we’ve also seen over the years how some perfume factories are starting to close, and others are worried about their future.
The duo wanted to make ittars accessible to everyone. “The idea was actually to offer it to customers — people like us who, if we knew something like this existed, would appreciate it,” Cratty said.
Devrina Dhingra, author of The Perfume Project: Journeys Through Indian Perfumes, agrees. “The Ittars actually have a marketing problem. They’re stuck in the past in many ways,” she said. “But it’s also an awareness problem. I don’t know if many people know that this industry still exists, the way it exists, what it does, and what is actually available.
Cratty said the initial response to Bond was overwhelming with more than 10,000 orders sent in the 12 months to October, a significant number for the startup.
Sales rise in winter, the Indian wedding season, and when Christmas orders arrive from abroad. The company said it expects sales to double in the next two years, but declined to disclose its revenue numbers.
“Recently, people have begun to realize again what is artificial fragrance and what is real perfume,” Krati said. “Especially after COVID-19, there has been a shift towards the real thing.”
According to market research firm Technavio, the Indian perfume industry will grow by about 15 percent annually over the next five years. While B2B is currently dominating market trends, the number of Indian companies selling their own fragrances directly to consumers is increasing.
Indian beauty writer Aparna Gupta said there has been a “remarkable shift, or renaissance if you will, in the local market’s attitude towards these traditional fragrances,” which are mostly marketed on Instagram, and demand for which has gained “huge momentum.”
She credited brands like Bond that focus on traditional, time-tested attar scents for playing a “pivotal role” in this resurgence. “They are not just selling Tatars; “They are reintroducing a forgotten art form to a generation eager to reconnect with their heritage,” she said.
Then there are other new brands like Kastoor and Naso Profumi that target “younger consumers by blending traditional elements with modern nuances” — for example, Kastoor’s Mahal with its unique blend of patchouli and lotus, Gupta said.
Imitation of smell
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It is unclear exactly how long essential oils and fragrance oils — which are made when vapors of ingredients are extracted without using the base oil — have been produced through hydrodistillation in India. However, recently excavated stills of distillation from Indus Valley cities indicate the existence of an aroma culture in some form dating back to around 3000 BC.
Around Kannauj, many locals attribute the discovery of the itar to the Mughal queen Nur Jahan, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries AD. However, Sanskrit texts indicate that the region was already a perfume center before the Mughal era. Historians believe that the practice was revitalized by new ingredients and distillation methods developed by the Mughal court.
Production is very seasonal, and February in Kanawage is damask rose season. The warm winter sun was high in the sky when a motorcycle pulled up to the Bream & Company distillery, carrying a burlap sack tied to its back. Dinesh, the distiller, immediately weighed, inspected, and emptied the dark pink flowers into the water inside a large copper vessel called a degree.
Within minutes, the edge of the step was sealed with a metal cap and an airtight layer of water and mud, and a bamboo pipe was connected from the step to another, smaller vessel, the bhakpa, set in a concrete basin. from water.
Each step is installed over a wood- or dung-fired oven, and the distilled vapors pass through the pipes, collecting and condensing in the bhakpa. This bhakpa contains essential oil, which over time becomes saturated with the aroma of the distilled substance.
Boond Fragrances uses local artisans, like Dinesh, to distill new scents and traditional favorites, including Mitti, the scent of fresh rain, and Khus, known for its refreshing notes. Just one touch is enough with 6 ml (0.2 oz) for $20.
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Modern Attar
Castor founder Isha Tiwari wants to change current perceptions. “The strings are heavy,” she said. “In earlier times, the etarats were very distinct. They were used by kings and queens as a means of advertising. But I don’t want to drag you back to the fourteenth century. “I will bring this art form into the 21st century.”
Kastoor was established in 2021. During R&D, the 30-year-old Tiwari, who has a background in marketing, conducted workshops to facilitate knowledge exchange between Itar artisans and modern perfume connoisseurs. The result is a collection of seven “modern etras,” in which trusted ingredients are combined in new and unique proportions with 8 ml (0.3 oz) servings selling for $22 to $36. The target market is middle-class and urban consumers looking for an all-natural fragrance.
Growth was rapid. Kastur has another group of itaras under construction, and has increased the number of artisans it employs from three initially to 12 to 15 families in Kannauj, Hyderabad and Uttarakhand.
Tiwari found that younger generations of artisan families were leaving the industry due to lack of prospects. “They did not see the demand,” Tiwari said. “This is where we are. This is not a one-time increase that we give to their business. This is an ongoing change in their livelihoods.”
According to Tiwari, Castor’s turnover is expected to rise from US$ 120,000 and grow 5 to 6 times over the next two-three years.
Made in India
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In addition to the domestic market, these new brands are also exported all over the world – to Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and the Middle East. The absence of alcohol makes Tatar non-haram and suitable for religious purposes for both Hindus and Muslims.
The growing interest in sustainability and organic products around the world is also bringing these producers new customers.
“In the beauty industry, there has been a whole movement toward natural and local products, and in that sense, cosmetics fit in really well,” Dhingra said.
Global perfumer Yosh Hahn said that globally, there is a “growing desire to decolonize fragrance” and “an interest in POC scents.” [people of colour] Brands” due to which some of these new Indian companies are gaining attention from abroad.
Back in Kannauj, generations of knowledge and experience mean that local artisans are ideally placed to exploit and adapt to these new trends while promoting Indian products.
The name Castor comes from the word kasturi, which is also known as musk, which is the smell of a deer’s navel. Tiwari explained that according to folklore, the deer was fascinated by this scent and searched for it, without understanding that it was coming from itself.
“So we used it as a metaphor,” she smiled. “We still look outward frantically, not realizing that we are the creators of the most indulgent scents in the world.”