For a number of years now, Hassan Siddiqui has by no means had a day that didn’t embrace Perfumes in it. “I’ve round 600-700 bottles of attars and round 300 Western scents. The most expensive one in my assortment is a 10-ml bottle of pure Oudh attar that prices ₹46,000. Sure, it’s like an habit, however of the nice type,” he laughs, over a telephone interview.

The 26-year-old Siddiqui is considered one of many aroma fans attempting to spotlight India’s thriving indigenous perfume trade by means of social media. Although he’s primarily based in Bahraich, a small city close to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Siddiqui reaches a world viewers by means of his YouTube channel Fragrance Evaluate India. It affords a mixture of product trials, interviews with perfumiers and explainers on perfume utilization and terminology in Hindi/Urdu, to its 17,800-plus subscribers.

Siddiqui needs to extend consciousness concerning the position pure fragrances play in Indian tradition. His focus is on attar or ittar, a broad time period that refers to scents utilizing important oils derived from botanical sources by way of steam or hydro-distillation, a technique credited to the Persian doctor Ibn Sina (also referred to as Avicenna in Europe).

Lots of India’s conventional attar producers depend on Ibn Sina’s extraction methods, and are masters at creating not simply floral scents, but in addition edible flavouring from pure sources.

Over a thousand enterprises are reportedly concerned within the Indian fragrance trade, estimated to be price 500 million USD in a world market of $24 billion. Moreover pure plant extracts, fragrance producers use chemical compounds and artificial components.

Though imported alcohol-based perfumes have a extra seen presence within the Indian market, attars too are holding their very own. As India grows 31 of the 300 naturally aromatic uncooked supplies required for fragrance manufacture, it is a vital provider of important oils like mint, jasmine, sandalwood, tuberose and spices within the international market.

Conventional manufacturing

The home pure perfume market is dominated by Kannauj, a city in Uttar Pradesh generally known as the fragrance capital of India. “We’ve been utilizing the identical hydro-distillation method since 1896, when my nice grandfather Sheikh Mohamed Ayub established the perfumery,” says Saad Akhir, of Kannauj’s family-run enterprise Syed Mohamed Ayub Mohamed Yaqub Perfumers.

The traditional method begins with the plucking of flowers early within the day. The petals alone are blended with water and poured into copper stills generally known as deg and sealed with a combination of clay and cotton. A bamboo pipe doubling as a condenser (chonga) connects the deg to the copper receiver (whose mouth has been lined with fabric or bhapka) positioned in a cooling chamber stuffed with water.

An earthen oven (bhatti) fuelled by wooden and dung truffles ‘cooks’ the petals till the distillate is obtained from the vapour in two separate rounds. Each the bhatti and the water within the cooling tank are continuously monitored to keep up a good temperature.

Kannauj is thought for attar shamama, a dense, woody scent stated to be invented by Sheikh Mohamed Ayub, that’s used within the base of most fragrance blends by designer homes in France and UK. “Sarcastically,” says Siddiqui, “they’re bought again to India, at a significantly excessive worth, and our individuals are unaware of this.”

Patronised by the Mughals and the opposite princely states with Turkish hyperlinks, attar makers and sellers have been as soon as an integral a part of the Indian cityscape, as will be seen from the remnants of avenue names like ‘Attar Mohalla’ and ‘Gandhakaarar Theru’ in southern India.

“The credit score for patronising perfumes in Lucknow goes to the Nawabs of Oudh, significantly to Nawab Wajid Ali Shah,” says Vishwas Vijayvergiya, whose household runs Sugandh Co in Lucknow. Other than distillate extracts of agarwood, sandalwood and flowers, India additionally pioneered the artwork and science of creating incense, an elixir that perfumes areas by means of the combustion of aromatic supplies with aromas permeating by means of smoke, he provides.

Holding it pure

The lockdown briefly affected manufacturing of base oils till restrictions have been eased in September. “Though our exports have stopped because of the pandemic laws, we’re nonetheless manufacturing for our home prospects,” says Mohamed Sadathullah of Hameed and Co Perfumers in Hyderabad.

“We make perfumes with a sandalwood base, and likewise blends from attars purchased from Kannauj, like henna, rose, and amber. We make oudh from the wooden (agarwood, aloe wooden) that grows in Assam. The wooden chips are cooked to extract the oil from it. All our sandal-based perfumes are made with out chemical components and alcohol,” he says.

Cities like Delhi, Hyderabad and Lucknow are additionally well-liked for attar procuring excursions, which give guests a whiff of historical past with an ittar-saaz or perfumier creating a personalized attar utilizing totally different compounds.

“We are able to recreate many of the French, Italian and American scents with the assistance of the components right here, as a result of the bottom be aware is kind of the identical,” claims Saadathullah.

Measured in tolas (12 ml = 1 tola), the attar is bought in quaint craft glass bottles that add to the Oriental mystique of the fragrance.

YouTuber Siddiqui, who launched his personal fragrance model lately, says that he has come throughout some knowledgeable aroma replicators on his excursions. In considered one of his movies on uncommon attars, Siddiqui opinions merchandise that odor like ‘Johnson’s Child’, mud, and Lucknowi biryani. “I really feel we must always do extra to showcase our attars successfully. The producers haven’t even entered into influencer advertising and marketing, although this trade is prospering,” he says.

He factors out the picture downside attars appear to have, generally. “Costly attars, which usually promote for ₹1,000 per 10ml, are packaged in ₹3 glass bottles with cheaper applicator sticks. Moreover this, prospects have to be educated on the appropriate time of the 12 months, and day, to make use of these pure scents. A winter-time fragrance like musk can become very smelly in summer time.”