DUBAI | KENYA
Two Worlds. One Connection.
I didn't set out to build a perfume house. I set out to fix something that annoyed me — the scents I loved cost more than a week of groceries, and the ones I could afford were gone by lunchtime.
So we started making our own, in the Emirates. Not sketching a label and emailing a factory — the actual work. I sit in on the blends. I argue about the cap. I argue about the weight of the box, because a bottle that feels light in the hand has already told you something before you have smelled it. From the first idea to the parcel at your door, it is our own hands the whole way.
The Emirates taught us the notes — oud, resin, amber, the warm evening scents people in the Gulf have worn for generations.
Karachi taught us people.
We opened three shops there, and standing behind a counter changes you as a brand. You watch someone lift a tester, breathe, and decide before they have said a word. No caption, no discount code. Just a face.
Our shop at Ocean Mall, Karachi.
Gulshan, Karachi.
The team behind the counter.
Kenya is our newest market, and I would rather be straight with you about what that means.
There is no Elyscents shop in Nairobi yet. There is no long list of Kenyan customers I can point at to convince you. What there is, is four bottles I am confident enough to arrive with.
Every one of them is blended and sealed in the Emirates and flown to Nairobi. Nothing is mixed here, nothing is decanted here, nothing is topped up. The bottle you open is the bottle that left our floor, sealed.
And you pay when it reaches you. Cash or M-Pesa, at your door, to the person who hands it over. Delivery is free anywhere in Kenya. I know exactly how much of a stranger a new perfume brand is on the internet — so we carry that risk instead of asking you to. Smell it first. Decide after.
"Two worlds, one connection" is not a line we bought from an agency. It is a description of a supply chain, and honestly it is a description of me. The scent is Emirati. The welcome, I hope, will be Kenyan.
If it is not what you hoped for, tell us. I would rather hear it than not.
— Shoaib Ahmed Baig, Founder