Manan Gandhi’s long, nimble fingers reach the atomiser of Madurai Talkies, a fragrance that bottles up nostalgia. He spritz his wrist with a reasonable amount of the delicate jasmine perfume.
As the subtle notes of bergamot, mandarin and neroli disseminate in the air, he smiles at the fond memories that surface from the city of Madurai—known for its jasmine—that he once visited. The impressions now come in little bottles at the Bombay Perfumery, a contemporary fragrance house in Delhi.
Treating everybody to pleasant olfactory experiences, Manan brings you progressive scents soaked in the essence of Indianness. His boutique redefines the traditional ittar/oodh.
During his time spent living and working with fragrance houses in Grasse, France, he witnessed the growth of the independent perfumery, and realised that customers were increasingly interested in high-quality and niche perfumeries.
“With my background in ingredients, I wondered why there weren’t any contemporary Indian fragrance houses that put the spotlight on Indian ingredients,” he says. That was the eureka moment for Manan.
He’s proved his mettle as an innovator in the way he has pushed the sense of smell boundaries back home. His scents are a mix of pleasant, peculiar, and progressive. For instance, ingredients such as black pepper, cardamom and ginger—things that you would otherwise not associate with scents—are assimilated.
“A good example is of how we’ve used traditionally well-known ingredients such as jasmine and tuberose, but twisted them in unique combinations with leather,” says Gandhi, who uses cutting-edge fragrance technology like headspace, that’s new to India.
The perfumes are conceptualised by Gandhi in collaboration with international experts such as Jacques Chabert (Guerlain, Chanel and Loewe) and Alexandra Carlin (Amouage, Givenchy).
In addition, perfumers Pierre Kurzunne and Tristan Rostain have created special fragrances for the brand. “When I decided to launch Bombay Perfumery, I kept reiterating to myself that I wanted to work with perfumers who understood the modern India and who didn’t only work on stereotypical western notions of India,” he says.
On the racks you’ll find an assortment. The spicy, woody fragrance of Calicut with notes of elemi, bergamot and cardamom are placed along with the ginger, woody 1020 with notes of bergamot, lemon, ginger oil, red berry pepper and spearmint.
There’s the woody, citrus Les Cayes with notes of grapefruit, lemon, bergamot, and amber Sulawesi with notes of bergamot, cardamom and coriander seeds, among others. “I love black pepper, so my go-to fragrance is Calicut,” shares Manan. Interestingly at Bombay Perfumery, the feedback for unconventional ingredients such as ginger, pepper and chai have been promising too.
Each bottle comes with art work curated keeping in mind the top and base notes, as well as the inspiration behind each fragrance. The bottle is placed in the middle, so when you open the packaging, the four sides fall out like flower petals.
The process of developing the fragrances took more than a year. It started with a precise brief to the perfumer. Post that, possible olfactive directions are meted. The long process of trial and error then begins, upon the completion of which, you have a bottle ready.
The dearth in fine fragrance Indian brands at the moment is vividly recognisable, but its scope in the future cannot be negated. “Some of the most noble fragrance, including jasmine, tuberose, sandalwood, all the spices, agarwood, mints and others, come from India, and I see no reason we cannot tap further on these resources,” says the owner, leaving us all with a pleasant thought.