THE STORY

 

It started with Dalal’s father.

 

Dalal, a Kuwaiti fashion and beauty influencer, remembers her father waking her and her siblings up for school in the morning. Already showered and dressed, her father would waltz into her bedroom and a specific scent would follow him inside. This fragrance was a mixture of sweet and smoky, powerfully masculine and casual at the same time. Dalal did not understand this when she was younger. She just felt this was her father’s essence.

 

Now, of course, she understands that this was his ‘signature’ scent. Her father would buy the cologne bottles by the dozens because he used the same fragrance for various occasions. Whether he showed up in the morning before driving his children to school or in the afternoon when the sun was brightest and other parents smelled like sweat and heat, Dalal’s father always smelled good, and his scent was always recognizable.

 

Dalal pondered the idea of a signature smell alongside the ‘special tray’ that her mother shared on special occasions. For instance, on Eid holidays and weddings, Dalal’s mother would bring out a tray covered in luxurious bottles, full of perfumes, colognes, incense, oil, and bukhoor: accessories for olfactive beauty.

 

Dalal remembers the process of getting ready for these major events. The whole family would shower and dress independently then they would all gather in the living room before heading to their destinations. Each member would take his or her turn, selecting whatever items he or she preferred from the tray. They would spray perfumes or colognes on wrists and necks, walk into the bukhoor’s fragrant swirls, and then leave the house as a family unit. She began contemplating why certain events required stronger scents, and why some fragrances were associated with happy occasions.

 

Dalal never found a perfume that she could claim as her own the way her father did with his cologne. Like other creative people, Dalal understands that ‘the self’ is multiple. Thus, instead of signature smells, she tends to gravitate to odors depending on where she finds herself in her professional journey, hours of the day, her mood, seasons, the makeup she is wearing, or the songs she is obsessing over, and so on and so forth. She recently found out that her relationship to fragrances mirrored her relationship with makeup and fashion, and all of them relied on fluidity and constant evolution.

 

WHY THE NAME?

 

In the last few years, Dalal has been thinking more about the sense of smell and its relationship to beauty, and these memories of her father and her mother’s special tray have inspired her to undergo a journey of creation.

 

The sense of smell is linked to memory and recollection more than any other sense, and in addition to triggering memory, scents are likewise emotive, provoking an array of emotions in people, from desire, to calm and safety, to excitement and joy, and numerous others.

 

Each perfume in this collection represents an essence of Dalal herself, or one of her signature traits, but not just any trait in general. While working on DALALID perfumes, Dalal decided to explore the timeless and mythic aspects of her identity, the parts of her being that are larger than life, that made her the influencer she is today.

 

She hopes that this collection will inspire others to tap into their legendary selves, and to help them create new memories of creativity and success.