International perfumery in India exudes the right smells

Wednesday, 16 April 2003, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: In the land of rosewater, sandalwood and incense comes a tribute to the fragrances of Escada, YSL, Gucci and Nina Ricci. This international perfumery doesn't quite have the attributes of the Indian epic character Draupadi, whose sweat is said to have smelled of a freshly bloomed lotus, but it makes up by stocking 250 varieties from 40 of the world's best perfume labels. At the 3,000 sq ft, two storied Kunchals that opened in Delhi's upmarket shopping district of Greater Kailash I, deliciously red bottles of Hugo Woman rub shoulders with the stately black containers of Azzaro. The shop is hailed as India's first international perfumery. "Our aim is to provide what they have in the best perfume districts of Paris. Choosing a fragrance is an extremely intimate experience and we shall provide that intimacy," said Smriti Gupta, of the husband wife duo that owns Kunchals. So the Guptas have hired 10 trained perfume experts who would guide customers in choosing just the right smell for themselves. Hemant Gupta said: "Choosing a perfume is a three-tiered process. Every perfume has three notes - the first note is what you immediately smell after spraying. "The middle note comes after settling in a little and then the original, final note comes later, which is how the perfume will finally smell. A lot of Indian customers don't know this and apart from our experts, every brand stocked in our store will have its own brand agent to help customers." To test perfume knowledge, the Guptas invited fashion designer Monisha Bajaj, former Miss India Manpreet Brar, make up expert Vidhya Tikari, animal rights activist Ambica Shukla and choreographer Vandana Mohan to sniff and guess some famous smells. "Perfumes are me," said Brar. "I use them according to my moods and there are so many of those." Standing beside the transparent fibre-glass shelves, where the bottles are stored under soft blue and white light and in strictly regulated temperatures, Hemant explained how at every stage he plans to guide the customer thorough blotters, testers and coffee beans. "Every brand we sell, no matter how expensive, comes with an unlimited supply of testers. Apart from that we only make the customers smell the fragrances on special blotting papers, which best reveal the texture of the smell. "And after every couple of fragrances they try, we give them imported coffee beans to smell. This neutralises the senses so that they are able to make the fine distinction between fragrances." The opening of Kunchals is a move ahead for international brands in India's perfume industry, which for some years now have seen the steady trickling of foreign brands. But the biggest names like Christian Lacroix, Salvador Dali, La Prairie from Switzerland and Tender Kiss from de Lalique, all of which the store stocks, remained rare. The entry of foreign players have also seen the slow but steady demise of India's regal home-grown fragrances like sandalwood, rosewater and "attar", once sprinkled liberally in the great Mughal courts. India has relinquished its position to Indonesia as the world's supplier of sandalwood oil and China has usurped the position of largest supplier of menthol, an important base for perfumes. India was the leading menthol supplier till about four or five years ago. "Like everyone else, Indian fragrances also have to reinvent themselves to fight the foreign names. We stock good sandalwood and rose perfumes too," said Smriti.
Source: IANS
siliconindia