Middle Eastern perfumes are trending, led by Lattafa and Mona Kattan’s Kayali

The fragrance industry has long had a pretty fixed idea of what serious perfume looks like, and for most of that time, it came with a French address. Then Kayali, a Dubai-based fragrance label founded by Mona Kattan (also the co-founder of Huda Beauty) and built around the Middle Eastern art of scent layering, became the No 1 fragrance brand at Sephora in the first half of 2025, outpacing every legacy house on the shelf. Lattafa, another Dubai-based brand best known for its richly blended, accessibly priced eau de parfums, racked up more than US$63 million in TikTok Shop sales in a single year, and searches for “Arabian perfume” climbed over 60 per cent across TikTok and Google in 2025. Just like that, a tradition that’s been woven into daily life across the Middle East for centuries is, suddenly, everyone’s favourite new discovery. Part of what makes the category so irresistible to outsiders is how different the underlying philosophy is. “Western fragrances are often created to project, to make an impression, to be noticed. In many ways, they are worn outwardly, almost as a statement for others,” says Abdulla Ajmal, CEO of Ajmal Perfumes, which is currently expanding from its Dubai base into the US market. “In the Middle East, fragrance has historically been far more intrinsic – a part of daily life, of ritual, of identity.” That shows up in the formulas, too: oil-based or oil-heavy, built around ingredients like oud, amber, musk and rose, designed to evolve slowly on the skin rather than announce themselves brashly and disappear. That relationship with scent goes back a long way. Bakhoor, the practice of burning fragrant wood chips to perfume a home or a garment, has been part of daily life across the region for centuries. Attars, concentrated oil-based perfumes applied directly to the skin, predate the alcohol-based sprays that would eventually come to dominate Western markets. But perhaps the most significant tradition of all is layering: building a personal scent from multiple products applied in sequence, starting with an oil, adding a spray, sometimes finishing with bakhoor, until what you’re wearing is something no one else could replicate. “Layering allows fragrance to move from something you wear to something you actively create,” says Ajmal. “It introduces a sense of versatility; you are no longer limited to a single expression, but can build different permutations depending on your mood, the setting or even the time of day.” Much like how one builds a look, layer by layer. But this global desire for Middle Eastern fragrance didn’t materialise out of nowhere. Prestige fragrance prices have climbed sharply in recent years, and Middle Eastern brands have quietly stepped into that gap, offering long-wearing, richly formulated scents at price points that are hard to argue with. The way that younger consumers discover and buy fragrance has shifted entirely, too. “The rise in popularity of influencer reviews has helped Arabian perfumes, as many younger consumers are buying brands nowadays without even trying them first, based on social media reviews,” says Julie Bhakta, Dubai-based business development director at Anisha International. That blind-buy culture, which exploded on TikTok post-pandemic, turned Middle Eastern fragrance into one of the platform’s most enthused-about categories, with unboxing videos and scent reviews doing the kind of work that a department store counter used to do. And the packaging has certainly helped. “Arabian perfume packaging brings back glamour, the unboxing experience and fantasy,” Bhakta says. “Huge boxes with layers to unwrap reveal ornate bottles with snakes and peacocks and Greek ornaments. Bottles can be kept as ornaments after use – they are beautiful keepsakes.” The result is a category that has quickly outgrown its geography. “Arabian fragrance brands dominate the Middle East and Africa market, representing seven of the top 10 brands and 80 per cent of combined value, at US$1.25 billion in 2025,” says Amna Abbas, senior consultant at Euromonitor International, adding that their global expansion is being driven by “high-quality and long-lasting fragrances from natural ingredients like wood, amber, musk and flowers”. Western luxury has taken note: brands like Tom Ford, Gucci, Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Byredo have all built oud-based collections that speak directly to the Arabian fragrance tradition, which says something about where the industry’s creative appetite has been pointing for a while now. That global push looks different depending on which brand you’re tracking. Lattafa, for example, has built its international following almost entirely through TikTok, while Arabian Oud takes the opposite approach, with flagship stores in Times Square, Oxford Street and the Champs-Élysées. Kayali positioned itself as the bridge between Middle Eastern scent culture and a Sephora generation weaned on body mists and vanilla everything. And Amouage, the luxury house from Oman, has gone from a regional icon to a global one, opening new boutiques in New York, Riyadh and Guangzhou in 2025 alone. Part of what’s driving all this is a broader shift in how people relate to fragrance. Abbas believes these scents are increasingly being embraced “as a self-care and wellness product, a scent that can contribute to boost mood through smell”, which makes sense at a moment when the wellness conversation has expanded to cover everything from what you eat to how your home smells. It’s also a moment of genuine convergence between two approaches to fragrances that used to feel worlds apart. Ajmal says Western consumers are growing more open to depth and individuality, while Middle Eastern perfumery is evolving in the opposite direction, offering lighter, more versatile interpretations without losing its signature longevity. “It’s less of a contrast now, and more of a conversation between two philosophies of fragrance,” concludes Ajmal.

Middle Eastern perfumes are trending, led by Lattafa and Mona Kattan’s Kayali

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}From TikTok Shop to legacy houses, oud has gone mainstream – with Gucci, Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Tom Ford all launching dedicated collections

From TikTok Shop to legacy houses, oud has gone mainstream – with Gucci, Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Tom Ford all launching dedicated collections