Poetic Twist to Indian Perfume Industry

India perfume (Ittar) sellers tend to disagree with William Shakespeare who said “What’s in a name?” in one of his famous novels. Many sellers of natural scents in India prefer to give poetic names to their perfumes to attract customers.

The same perfumes, carefully packed in same kind of bottles, sell differently in shops around Bangalore—some shops sell the same fragrances more just because of the attractive poetic descriptions they give to their perfumes.

“If we feel one fragrance is liked a lot by customers, we keep an attractive name for it,” said Abdul Rehman Khan who sells natural scents in the crowded market of Shivajinagar, Bangalore. “We keep the name for recognition; like we name a child.”

According to Khan, every scent induces an emotion and the customer identifies with the scent through that emotion. A perfume with a complementing name strikes a better cord with the customer. “When a customer buys a perfume with an attractive name from my shop, he’ll get confused at the other shop when he finds the same fragrance with a different name. He’ll come back to me,” said Khan.

Khan’s father was a teacher who used to do an extra business of selling natural scents outside the mosque, carrying small scent bottles in the empty case of a geometry box. “When people came out after offering prayers, we would apply scents on them. Out of the 100 people we would apply Ittar on, at-least 10 would buy. I converted that street business into a shop,” said Khan who has been selling natural scents for the past 25 years.

He has given many Arabic poetic names to natural scents. “There is “Tamana” which means wishes. I named it so because when applied once, one wishes to apply it more. Another is “Dilnasheen,” which means heart alluring. We say that if you apply Dilnasheen you will be “Hamnasheen” which means the beloved,” he explained.

Another one is named as “Alkharaba,” which means luminescent. “We say if you apply Alkharaba, you are ”marhaba” meaning welcome.”

Khan says that if you are without family, selling natural scents could be a good business. “You can roam from street to street; sell one bottle of perfume and eat your lunch, sell another in the evening and eat your dinner. But when you are with a family, you need to be innovative like I am.”

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