When I moved to Dubai when I was 17, that was like taking it from love to next-level obsession — just a crazy fascination with fragrances. Because, in Dubai, people use perfume in such an interesting way. They use it as a ritual, as a part of their daily lifestyle, as a part of their celebrations — it’s just something that’s really celebrated in life. And it really inspired me to create a brand. I don’t think I would have been this obsessed and this inspired if I didn’t move to Dubai. It’s a perfume-lover’s playground. In every corner you go to in Dubai, there’s something about perfume, whether it’s a little kiosk selling really interesting, weird types of perfumes or the biggest perfume shop in the world.
— Mona Kattan on the fragrance obsession that led her to start the Kayali brand. Read more in Mona Kattan on growing Kayali: ‘Every delay has a blessing’ at Glossy.
Her fragrance library has over 3500 bottles? Finally, somebody who has more bottles than I do!
It’s an impressive collection. Maybe she should be hosting the damage polls 😉
My collection is only 195 different perfumes.
I have not counted in years, but I’ve also divested myself of quite a few bottles…I doubt I have that many these days! Unless you could samples & decants, in which case…
They’re not all full bottles. About 100 of them are minis or travel sizes, so they can be considered decants or large samples. I like to collect perfume miniatures (the type that are smaller scale copies of the full-size bottles), which are usually around 3 to 5 mL. I like perfume bottles almost as much as perfume, and one of the things I miss with current perfumery is that there are very few really distinctive bottles any more. I figure the minis take up less display space than FBs, and I tend to regard them as art pieces or collector’s items, with the perfume being just sort of a bonus. I haven’t even counted my sample vials. One of my goals for the rest of this year and next year is to work through my samples and weed out those that are a definite No.