Forget Smelling “Clean” — I Want To Smell Like My Culture

When I was a child, my home was an adventure in scent — fragrant spices and heady incense that I could explore without limits. I loved the smell of the bakhoor that my mother would light every Thursday night to spiritually cleanse the home, and how it lingered until bedtime. The smell of cardamom that overtook our home whenever my mother baked cookies was more comforting than the cookies themselves, and my father’s habit of spraying oud cologne before heading out to both the masjid and to buy groceries seemed like a natural extension of his confidence. I associated strong, complicated scents with spirituality and with the noise of family.  I still gravitate towards those powerful scents nowadays, but I’ve noticed how rarely my head turns in recognition when I’m running errands, or how infrequently I recognize a powerful bottle of a Middle Eastern perfume like Omanluxury Nasaj on TikTok or Instagram. Instead, most It Girls and influencers tend to buy