Origins · 5 min

Kannauj, the city that bottles rain

Three of the ten Désir candles begin in one small town on the Ganges plain.

Kannauj is a market town in Uttar Pradesh where, for at least four centuries, copper stills called degs have turned flowers, roots and even baked earth into attars. Nothing about the method has changed: the material is steamed, the vapour is carried through bamboo pipes into a receiver of sandalwood oil, and the sandalwood slowly takes on the scent.

Ruh gulab

Rose attar, picked before dawn, is the town's most famous product and the heart of Ardore. It is spicier and deeper than the rose oils of Bulgaria or Turkey because sandalwood is part of it from the first drop.

Mitti

Mitti attar is the strangest thing Kannauj makes: discs of baked clay from the riverbank, steamed to release the smell of the first monsoon rain. It is petrichor, made on purpose, and it is the whole idea of Notte.

Khus

Vetiver root, wild-harvested from Rajasthan and distilled here, is cooler and greener than the Haitian vetiver most perfumery uses. It is the silk in Seta. Three candles, one town, and a method older than the perfume industry.