The Indian Art of Fragrance Layering That French Perfumers Borrowed, Renamed, and Sold Back to the World

Before French perfumers built their pyramids of top, heart, and base notes, Indian women in Kannauj were already layering attar on pulse points with the precision of a ritual. The fragrance tradition that Europe eventually codified and sold as modern perfumery had been alive in India for centuries, in the oud smoke, the sandalwood paste, the ittar gifted at weddings.