- Hi, Harper's Bazaar.
It's Mona Kattan founder of Kayali Fragrances,
and I'm so excited to welcome you to my fragrance library.
So I started collecting fragrances at the age of 14,
when I got my first job, almost all of my money
went towards beauty products
and majority of that was fragrances
because to me, fragrances make me feel so many emotions
and I just feel like it's a magical bottle
of like moods which I just love so much.
Right now my fragrance library smells like,
so many different samples that I'm working on.
At a given time, I'm usually testing about 20 to 30 samples
for the future creations that we're working on.
This smells amazing.
So my first fragrance was actually this one right over here.
It is Curve by Liz Claiborne,
I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't repurchase it today
if it wasn't for the memories I have
associated to this fragrance
because it's not really my style anymore.
But when I was 14 and I lived in Dartmouth, Massachusetts
there weren't many options.
I had to buy all my perfumes from like CVS Pharmacy.
She did good.
Look at the color, matches my outfit.
I love it.
My most recent purchase or purchases
are all these babies right here.
So as you guys know,
I'm a bit insane when it comes to fragrances
and I think I probably buy about a hundred per month.
I still have to go through all of these and smell them
because I just wanna like make sure I get familiar with it.
So I've got a lot of work to do.
These are my new babies.
Welcome to your new home, yeah.
So my favorite fragrance in my collection
is one of our Kayali fragrances.
It's Sweet Diamond.
I love this fragrance for so many reasons.
I do love the actual scent so much,
it's a beautiful, spicy sweet floral fragrance
that's just delicious, and so long-lasting,
this was one of the first ones that I worked on
after my therapy journey.
So I feel like I was able to go in deeper
on the meaning behind it and the storytelling.
And this is really a ode to feminine energy
which I think everybody has in them.
So there's just too much I could tell you
about this fragrance, it's so meaningful to me.
And she's pink.
Woo.
(Mona giggling)
So a fragrance that I bought for the bottle
and not the scent 'cause I don't really like it so much,
is the one and only Chanel Number Five.
The scent is not so much me,
'cause it has aldehydes and I'm not a huge fan of aldehydes.
But the bottle itself is stunning,
it's a work of art, it's classic, it's iconic.
I even bought the whole collection
of this limited edition packaging.
If you have a fragrance library
you've gotta have Chanel Number Five.
The most expensive bottle in my collection
is actually this one right over here from Bvlgari.
I think it's 10 kilos, I'm not kidding.
It's so heavy, it's so pretty, and it's one of 50,
like only 50 bottles were produced in the world.
And my sister had got it from me as a present
because we were on a trip in London
and I was so sick
and I was in the hotel almost the whole time
and she felt really bad for me,
so she surprised me with this.
From memory, I think it was like 2000 pounds,
which is insane.
I was like, what are you doing, return it.
And then she was like,
you need it for your fragrance library.
And I was like, you're actually right.
So I'm still grateful you bought it for me,
would've preferred cash, but it's all good.
Now that it's done, I'm happy I have it.
So I decided to launch my own fragrance brand
for so many reasons.
Number one, I've been obsessed with scents
and the sense of smell.
I think it's because I'm a very emotional person
and I feel like the more emotional you are
the more you become attached to the memories
that you form with fragrances.
When I moved to Dubai, I was 17 years old,
and that's when my love for fragrances skyrocketed.
I've always said Dubai is a perfume lover's playground.
There's so many different scents in every single corner
and many different formats too.
It's not just eau de parfums, you have bakhoor,
you have oud oils, you have fragrance oils.
There's just so much into the rituals
of the Middle Eastern culture
that I thought was so beautiful and so interesting.
And to be honest, before I moved here,
I really wasn't familiar with that
and I fell in love so deeply that I was like,
if I could start a brand one day,
I need to start something around this
so I can share it with the world.
It's so rich,
and it really does make a difference in your life.
I feel like fragrances really are a form of self-love
because they really change how you feel in an instance.
So Kayali was born out of my love for fragrances
and the power that they have,
but also I wanted to keep in the Middle Eastern touches
into everything.
So the name Kayali means my imagination in Arabic.
The bottles themselves look like the bottles
that you find here in the souks.
Like this is a fancy one.
There's many different kinds,
but every single element of Kayali
has a touch of my Middle Eastern roots.
I always try to use some Middle Eastern notes.
I really feel like people are starting to change
and they're starting to realize how powerful fragrances are
which makes me so happy.
Fragrances do unfortunately expire,
or at least they start to oxidize
and start smelling a lot like alcohol.
It's really sad.
You can increase the the length of time that they last long
by keeping them in dark rooms with cold temperature.
Keeping them in like something like a foiled bottle,
this protects your fragrance longer.
Like when it's a cedar glass it will actually oxidize faster
but roughly they should be lasting pretty good
for about three to four years.
It also depends on the notes,
and the amount of alcohol versus oil concentration.
So the more oil they have, the longer they should last.
There is one type of fragrance that is the opposite.
So oud oils in particularly,
actually smell better with time
and the value goes up in time.
Kind of similar to wine.
Actually if you go shopping here in Dubai,
you can find some oud oils that will be like
20 - 30 thousand dollars per kilo
just because they're older.
But in general an eau de parfum unfortunately
does not last forever.
So the cultural differences with fragrances
from where I used to live in the States to Dubai
are extremely different.
Middle Eastern culture actually uses fragrances
as part of their daily rituals.
It's part of their celebrations.
It's a big part of identity, even.
People here will make their own fragrances
for their families, for their house,
and it becomes the identity of being in someone's home.
Another thing that people do here is they burn bakhoor
throughout their house.
They'll put it on their clothing,
they'll put it in their hair,
and it's really just such a beautiful thing.
It just smells so divine.
I'm just gonna show you guys.
This is a electronic burner that I bought,
and you just put a wood chip, which is agarwood.
It's oud, and you burn it.
It's with it's soaked with perfume oil as well,
so it has its own scent.
and they just put it under their hair like this
and your hair will actually soak up the scent
and it will last like all day.
The one person who I've met that smells the best
is actually my husband Hassan.
And I think that's part of the reason why I married him.
After the first few dates I was like, okay.
At first I thought he was just trying
'cause like obviously we were just dating
but then I realized he just always smells so good.
He's very picky with his fragrances
and I really love and appreciate that about him.
But I actually love a lot of celebrity
and influencer fragrances,
but the one that I'd have to say
is my absolute favorite right now
is the one by Billie Eilish.
I love the bottle, I love the fragrance
and I actually love her.
And ugh, I also love the price point,
it's a very good price.
Smells divine.
Living in Dubai does definitely give you
a lot of global exposure.
Access to so many brands that I might not have access to
if I was based in my old home in the US.
Being here really helped me beef up my library
and get tons of fragrances that are super niche, very indie.
But I do travel quite a lot too.
And every time I travel, the one thing on my bucket list
for exploring a new city or country,
is what fragrances do they have that nobody else has?
I personally love layering my fragrances.
I was inspired by this when I moved to Dubai
'cause I remember when I first moved here
everybody was wearing so many different fragrances
and I'd ask people like, what are you wearing?
And they would like list off so many different things.
And I thought it was super cool
because people were like not following any rules.
A lot of my guy friends were wearing women's perfumes
or at least categorize women's perfumes
and they were mixing it with their own different fragrances.
And the mixture together smelled so beautiful
and it was so complex and long-lasting.
Makes your fragrances unique.
I don't ever wear fragrances on their own
unless I'm just trying on samples
and evaluating a fragrance for a launch.
If I'm just going out on my own or if it's date night,
I wear about five to 10 fragrance minimum.
And Kayali was actually created around a layering concept.
So collection number one was actually created
to layer around our elixir,
and we have the musk, the citrus, and our vanilla
which is kind of like your toppers for elixir.
Recently, the past few years,
a lot of people are now exploring layering.
I remember when I first presented the concept
to different retailers around the world
they thought I was crazy.
They were like, people aren't gonna buy a few perfumes.
It's already hard to get them to buy ones.
But now it's literally the trend.
And I'm so happy to see that happen,
because everybody who starts layering tells me they're like
it's the best thing ever.
Creating your own fragrance, it's unique.
And no one's gonna smell like you.
And I do feel like it makes your fragrances last forever.
And a fun fact is that our Vanilla 28 was actually created
as my favorite topper
because my favorite layering perfume scent is
the vanilla note.
Our Vanilla 28,
literally I call it my whipped cream to my dessert.
Actually just recently launched our Vanilla Royal fragrance
which is our bougie big sister of Vanilla 28.
This is a much more intense vanilla.
It's a lot deeper, it's a lot richer.
We actually have oud inside as well.
We have something interesting
called the Sugared Patchouli note,
which also just is super sweet and delicious,
and it's also limited edition.
So hope you get your hands on it before it sells out.
All right, thank you so much Harper's Bazaar
for having me on your page.
It's been such a pleasure
and I hope you guys enjoyed watching.
I hope you learned something new about fragrances
and I hope that next time you spray your fragrances
that you enjoy them a bit more
and really use them as a tool of self love,
'cause they really are.