The Smell of Home
Every weekend I would open my eyes to a home filled with bright desert sunlight and the typical commotion of a big Indian family. As my senses came awake, the first thing I'd smell was turmeric - my mother putting face masks on my sisters, a generations old recipe, made from perishable ingredients pulled from the kitchen. Both sisters more often than not complaining about the texture.
I'd get up, brush my teeth, and light a piece of coal. This was my ritual. Mine alone. One I found deeply personal. The coal would burn and I'd place bakhoor (oud) on top, watching it sizzle as it released a smoky, warm cloud that slowly filled the living room. The signal that a good weekend had started.
Later, in the evening, the house would shift again. Right around the Maghreb call to prayer, the smell of chai would drift through rooms. Cardamom steeped long in warm milk, for the glass my parents drank every evening without fail. If it was Saturday, the night still stretched ahead of us, full of possibility. If it was Sunday, that same smell carried something heavier - a quiet dread of the scaries.
This is what fragrance means when you grow up inside such houses. Not novel but part of the core of daily life.
When the smell leaves
I moved to America at 14. For years I couldn't put a finger on what I'd left behind. It wasn't the place exactly, or even the people. The smell didn't move with me.
I've always been drawn to fragrance because of this. At 20, I interned for L'Oréal and it taught me fragrance is too personal to be satisfied working for a European conglomerate.
I was around 16 when I first heard of Tom Ford Oud Wood - watching Jeremy Fragrance count down his top 10 favorite designer fragrances, I jumped when he said the word oud. I was enamored by the idea that people outside the UAE even knew what it was. I ran to every fragrance counter I could find, certain I’d finally found the thing that would pull me back to those Saturday mornings. Instead I found a watered-down imitation that was still foreign to me.
So, I brought it back
Real oud is not easy. It is dark and animalic and smoky in a way that takes some getting used to if you didn’t grow up with it. But I also believe that oud can be explored in ways that aren't necessarily harsh to the unfamiliar nose and can convey the feeling the scent brought to me growing up.
That's why I built Sudhar. For people that are also curious about where this art form can take them.
I build each collection around a central ingredient. Sourced, studied, understood, then made into something you can carry. There was only one place to start.
Project I: The Oud Collection is three fragrances, three takes on the same wood. Oud Saffron takes oud somewhere creamy, rich and almost sweet. Oud Patchouli takes it somewhere fresh and green. Oud Damask Rose wraps warm oud in musky rose petals.
Five percent of all profits go back to the three cities this brand is built from. New York. Mumbai. Dubai.
NYC is only as interesting as the cultures that add to it. This is my addition.
Project I: The Oud Collection — out now at sudharbeauty.com