25-07-2025
Dubai: How to get the most bespoke fragrances
As the perfume director for one of the world's most well-loved brands Edward Bodenham says, when it comes to a five-star scent, bespoke fragrances now rival the prestige of a hand-tailored suit from London's legendary Saville Row.
Much like a made-to-measure ensemble with hand-cut fabric and stitching, mass-market perfumes are being passed over in favour of entirely unique scents crafted for Dubai's discerning clientele.
'Having a bespoke scent created is just like having a suit tailored completely to your taste,' explains the perfumery director of Floris London, whose company has been crafting custom fragrances since the 1700s.
This comparison, said Bodenham, resonates particularly strongly in Dubai, where the city's wealthy clientele increasingly views bespoke perfumery as an essential component of their personal brand.
'We see that the customers have become more and more knowledgeable about fragrance,' Bodenham told KT LUXE. 'Scent is an integral part of the customer's personality. It reflects their taste and elegantly completes their outfit.'
For Floris London, which holds the distinction of being the only perfumer to receive Royal Warrants from both Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III, Dubai represents a return to its historical roots.
'Back in the 1700s, in the earliest days at Floris, we used to make a lot of bespoke perfumes for our local customers,' said Bodenham. 'So, when we reintroduced our Bespoke Perfumery Service 15 years ago, it was really a case of going back to something that we always used to do back in the day and celebrating that for our customers today.'
The reintroduction has proven prescient. 'We have seen more and more demand for our bespoke service since we reintroduced it in 2010, so we see more and more people looking to have a fragrance that is uniquely theirs,' said Bodenham. 'Once someone has their bespoke scent created, they come back to it again and again, it becomes their signature.'
This loyalty stems from what industry experts describe as the deeply personal nature of bespoke fragrance creation.
'The bespoke formulas are recorded in our ledgers and become a legacy that future generations can connect with,' Bodenham adds, highlighting how custom scents transcend individual ownership to become family heirlooms.
'I think that Dubai has become a global hub for luxury and custom-made perfumes because there is obviously a lot of wealth there and also a lot of tourism, so while people are in that holiday kind of mentality they are often more likely to treat themselves to a special new fragrance or a little luxury that they would not usually splash out on.'
The city's unique demographic composition further amplifies this trend. 'Dubai also has such a wonderfully diverse mixture of cultures, who all respect one another and thrive together well, so there is a huge range of personal tastes across all of those cultures and nationalities,' he said. 'From our experience, the complexity of the fragrance is very important to them.
I think that Dubai has become a global hub for luxury and custom-made perfumes because there is obviously a lot of wealth there and also a lot of tourism, so while people are in that holiday kind of mentality they are often more likely to treat themselves to a special new fragrance or a little luxury that they would not usually splash out on"
Edward Bodenham
'Although they all have different tastes, some preferring the traditional understated English citrus scents and florals, with others enjoying the warmth and comfort of oud, we see clients from Dubai having this innate understanding of scent creation, carefully building the layers of each scent.'
'We have also seen that wealthy clients in Dubai enjoy experimenting with fragrance by combining a few different favourite scents together.'
The market dynamics support this observation. According to Research and Markets, the UAE's fragrance market is experiencing remarkable growth at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 11.88 per cent, expected to reach $1.16 billion (Dh4.2 billion) by 2028, up from $6.4 million (Dh23 million) in 2022. The broader GCC fine fragrances market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.5 per cent to $19 billion (Dh69 billion) by 2032. This growth has attracted major industry players to establish significant presence in the region.
In April 2025, flavour and fragrance company IFF announced the opening of its Scent Dubai Creative Center, a 2,000-square-metre facility in Dubai Science Park. 'The Middle East is a key market for IFF's global growth,' said CEO Erik Fyrwald at the time, noting the region's 'strong demand for luxury and long-standing cultural ties to smell.'
The Middle East is a key market for IFF's global growth,' said CEO Erik Fyrwald at the time, noting the region's 'strong demand for luxury and long-standing cultural ties to smell"
Erik Fyrwald
The Dubai Creative Center features a perfumery art studio for co-creation with customers, a majlis and an academy for perfumery training, equipped with semi-industrial production robots and cutting-edge technology designed to accelerate speed to market while catering to regional preferences.
'Our new creative centre features a significant number of evaluation booths for all scent categories, from fine fragrances to home, fabric and beauty care, along with a full suite of advanced fragrance technologies,' said Ana Paula Mendonça, president of IFF Scent. 'This enables our experts to craft fragrances that excel in desirability, superiority and performance, ensuring every scent solution perfectly addresses different consumer touchpoints.'
The alchemy of personal scent
The process of creating a bespoke fragrance in Dubai has evolved into something approaching high theatre. At Floris London's private perfumery sessions, clients embark on what Bodenham describes as 'a very instinctive two-hour process where the customer's reaction to the scent is taken into consideration at every stage.'
'Our bespoke creation sessions take place in the private perfumery,' he explains. 'The experience starts by exploring the Floris Archive, a testament to 300 years of perfumery heritage and spanning an array of fragrance families. Once the preferred olfactive direction is identified, our perfumers will skilfully add new accords to complement their tastes and refine the composition until the personalised fragrance is complete.'
The meticulous attention to individual skin chemistry sets bespoke perfumery apart from off-the-shelf alternatives. 'Most importantly, each iteration will be tried on the customers' skin, so we make sure the fragrance works with their personal skin chemistry. The final formula is then recorded in our ledgers.'
For clients seeking deeper involvement, Floris offers its Design experience. 'We do see that those who are even more interested in scent and want to spend more time in creating their perfume, prefer our Design experience. This is a more iterative process where different olfactive directions are explored over the course of three appointments.'
The emotional component distinguishes bespoke perfumery from even the most exclusive off-the-shelf offerings. 'Having a bespoke scent is a very emotional experience,' Bodenham said. 'The connection the client builds with the materials, each single note representing a memory or aspiration unique to each person, based on their memory bank of scents that they have connected with throughout their entire life.'
This emotional investment creates fragrances that transcend mere luxury to become olfactory autobiographies. 'The resulting fragrance is a unique formula — that no-one else in the world has. Scent becomes as individual and personalised as the person who creates it, a unique olfactive signature building the personal heritage.'
The importance of fragrance as legacy resonates particularly strongly in Dubai's family-oriented culture. 'Many of our customers want to have their very own personal fragrance, which is a part of them and part of their personality for future generations of their family to inherit and enjoy,'
said Bodenham.
The exclusivity factor proves particularly compelling for Dubai's luxury clientele, though with cultural variations. 'Exclusivity is very important to many of our clients,' said Bodenham, 'although we have had some instances where customers give permission for their friends to order their bespoke fragrance and they like the fact that their personal scent is worn by their closest friends or family.'
Dubai's clients also demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of perfume's connection to significant life events. 'We do see customers particularly interested in creating scents for very special moments,' said Bodenham. 'Olfaction and memory are so well connected, with scent awakening feelings and moments stronger than any photographs, setting, or sounds. Some like to mark milestone occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, or even holidays. Some of our favourite moments are when couples choose our Together fragrance customisation to create their own individual scents for their wedding day, which they can relive by the magic of perfume whenever they like in the future.'
The emirate's bespoke fragrance surge has fostered local talent alongside international luxury houses.
For established houses like Floris London, differentiation in Dubai's increasingly crowded luxury perfume market relies on heritage and authenticity. 'Floris is still a wholly independent family-run Perfume House, so that differentiates us from a great number of other perfume houses and perfume brands,' Bodenham explains. 'We were also the only Royally Appointed Perfumer to Queen Elizabeth II and have now been granted the Royal Warrant from HM King Charles III.'
This emphasis on authentic heritage aligns with broader market trends. 'Apparently, increasingly customers are becoming more and more disillusioned with the mass marketing and global domination of a huge number of perfume brands,' Bodenham says. 'There is a trend for customers taking the time to seek out perfume companies who are little known, but they have passion, soul and real meaning behind their fragrances and their stories.'
Looking ahead, Bodenham anticipates continued evolution in the luxury perfumery sector, though not necessarily in directions one might expect. 'I think that in the perfumery market as a whole there is bound to be more AI experimented with in perfumery, although for us that will definitely not be the case,' he states, emphasising Floris London's commitment to traditional craftsmanship.
Instead, innovation may come through ingredient discovery and creative storytelling. 'I also think that more raw materials will be discovered and there will be some more unusual ingredients being incorporated into fragrances, like we are already seeing with different notes like smoke, tobacco, concrete, beetroot, and rhubarb to name just a few,' Bodenham predicts.
The shift away from mass-market approaches appears particularly pronounced in Dubai, he said, where clients value both luxury and authenticity.
