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Gulf fragrance houses built a 3,000-year tradition before TikTok made them a phenomenon. Here’s what’s driving UAE-origin scent into Western markets, and which bottles are worth it.
The blind buy — buying a fragrance without smelling it first — became common during the pandemic, when perfume counters closed and people were ordering everything from home. For Gulf fragrance houses, it was the first time their products could reach consumers outside the channels that European perfumery had controlled for decades: the editorial reviews, the boutique distribution, the travel retail placements that determined which brands a Western nose encountered first. “Four years ago, post-COVID-19 around when blind-buying became a big thing, there was this completely organic growth where people began talking about Lattafa,” Abdul Rahim Shaikh, Head of Research and Development at Lattafa, told WWD.
Lattafa sells its most popular oud EDPs for $22. In February 2025, it was the No. 1 brand on TikTok Shop, outselling its nearest competitor by a factor of three; between August 2024 and July 2025, it moved $63 million in sales. Kayali, founded in Dubai by Mona Kattan, was the No. 1 fragrance brand at Sephora’s U.S. stores in the first half of 2025. Amouage, an Omani-Emirati house founded in 1983 that Western luxury had spent forty years under-acknowledging, posted $260 million in retail sales in 2024, with U.S. business up nearly 70 percent year over year. The UAE perfume market reached $748.9 million in 2024, projected to hit $1.7 billion by 2033.
The oud factor
The fragrance tradition behind these numbers is built on a single ingredient. Oud comes from the infected heartwood of the Aquilaria tree — a resin the tree produces in response to a specific mold, which fewer than two percent of Aquilaria trees develop naturally. The raw material sells for approximately $5,000 per pound and has been traded out of the Arabian Peninsula into the Mediterranean, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East since before 1500 BC; by 200 AD, more than 3,000 tons of Arabian incense were being shipped to Rome annually.
In the Gulf, oud is used in bakhoor — wood chips smoldered over charcoal, often with rose water and amber — which burns in hotel lobbies, homes, and shopping malls; clothing is held over the smoke before going out. Oud oil goes on pulse points. A finished eau de parfum layers over both. “In this part of the world, oud is not something people ‘discover’ through perfumery — they grow up around it,” Abdulla Ajmal, CEO of Ajmal Dubai, told Gulf News. “You smell it in homes before guests arrive, in clothing, during celebrations, in prayer spaces, even attached to family members and memories. For many people in the Gulf, the scent of oud feels like home before it feels like luxury.”
Gulf fragrance preferences are also climatically logical. At 40°C (104°F) — the ambient temperature of a Dubai summer — citrus and aquatic fragrances evaporate within minutes. Oud, amber, and musk evolve slowly on warm skin. “The boom in gourmand fragrances has primed consumers to embrace richer, more indulgent scent profiles,” Mathilde Riba, beauty insights analyst at Spate, told WWD. “Sweet Arab perfumes, which fuse gourmand notes with oud and resinous accords, have seen remarkable traction.” Xavier Renard, Global Head of Fine Fragrance at Givaudan, told Premium Beauty News: “Middle East [brands] are growing fast on the global level. They offer affordable creations crafted by high-profile perfumers.”
The clean question
The Gulf fragrance tradition is several thousand years old, but the heritage houses that carry it — Amouage, Rasasi, Swiss Arabian, Ajmal — haven’t left things as they were for thousands of years. Generally, they have not adopted the phthalate-free or non-toxic language that Western clean beauty runs on. Fragrance formulas are trade secrets; the industry, Gulf and European alike, rarely volunteers ingredient transparency beyond what regulations require.
The brands that have engaged with clean formulation are the ones built for Western retail. Kayali, founded in Dubai in 2018 by Mona Kattan, is the most prominent: the entire line is explicitly phthalate-free, paraben-free, sulfate-free, and vegan, designed with Sephora distribution from the start. The perfumes are composed by French perfumers, which is also how Amouage and most Gulf prestige brands work; the difference is that Kayali discloses it. Lattafa, whose Western expansion tracks almost exactly with its TikTok rise, has several products certified through SkinSafe, the Mayo Clinic-developed clean beauty database; Khamrah, one of its most popular darker fragrances, carries a Teen SAFE designation — free of phthalates, bisphenols, and related hormone-altering chemicals.
For the traditional houses, the transparency is coming. The Western market that discovered Gulf fragrance through TikTok is also the market that reads ingredient labels. Whether Amouage and its peers will ultimately follow clean certification frameworks or simply expand the way luxury fragrance historically has — by not explaining itself — remains an open question.
Clean Gulf fragrances
Dab a bit of rich and resiny Gulf scents without the guilt.
Lattafa Khamrah
This dark and resinous scent with oud, amber, and a wine-like depth opens warm and stays that way; one of Lattafa’s most enduring bestsellers, confirmed phthalate-free on SkinSafe.
Kayali Oudgasm Rose Oud
Rose Damascena, pear, and oud; the most accessible entry into Kayali’s Oudgasm collection, and the fragrance that introduced a lot of Western noses to what oud can do when it’s balanced rather than dominating.
Kayali Oudgasm Vanilla Oud
Vanilla, saffron, praline, and oud; richer and sweeter than the Rose, the better choice for anyone who wants something that reads more gourmand than resinous.
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