Alghabra Parfums

Alghabra Parfums is an independent niche fragrance house built around the perfume heritage of Old Damascus. The brand traces its name to Mohammed Khair Alghabra, a Syrian perfumer who opened a small shop in the city in 1973 [1]. In its present form, however, it is a contemporary venture: Anas Alghabra, the founder's son, launched the modern label from Istanbul in the late 2010s using Turkish perfumers, and the operating company is registered in Turkey [2].

This dual identity shapes how the brand is described. Its heritage and namesake originate in Syria, where the story begins in Damascus, while the current corporate entity, Alghabra Group Kozmetik San. & Tic. LTD. STI, is based in the Ümraniye district of Istanbul [3]. The brand sums up its own concept as "Damascene made by Turkish hands" [4].

The roots of Alghabra Parfums lie with Mohammed Khair Alghabra, also known as Abu Al Khair. According to the company, he was born in 1947 in the outskirts of Damascus to a family with a garden full of flowers, where his father distilled blooms to extract natural oils. He began helping at his elder brother's perfume shop in the Old City at around the age of eight, and in 1973 opened his own perfumery, Maa tarat Al-Firdous, meaning "Perfumery of Paradise," at Souq Al-Bizuriyyah, the city's historic spice market [1]. There he became known for making bespoke fragrances for his customers.

The modern brand is the work of his son, Anas Alghabra, who moved from Syria to Istanbul in 2013 to study business [5]. He went on to work in the fragrance trade, becoming the Turkish distributor for the house Ajmal in 2015 and for M.INT Parfums in 2018. From that base he created Alghabra Parfums as a tribute to his father and to the city where he grew up, commissioning Turkish perfumers to compose the scents.

The first Alghabra Parfums fragrances appeared in 2018, opening the debut collection, "Poetic Scents of Damascus," with releases such as Poem of Damas and Scent of Paradise. A second collection, "Senses of Istanbul," followed, introducing scents including Eye of Seven Hills and Labyrinth of Spices and reflecting Anas Alghabra's adopted home. Later lines extended the range further, among them "Wonders of Russia" and "Essence of Origins," and the house continued to add fragrances through 2024 with launches such as Peruvian Tobacco and Jamaican Tobacco [6].

The brand's packaging is treated as part of the storytelling. According to the company, it worked with the painter Fatih Başar and the designer Mark J. Meier on silver and matte-black boxes decorated with artwork of Old Damascus; the sides of the five "Poetic Scents of Damascus" boxes are designed so that, placed together, they form a single painting of the old city with the founder's original shop visible in one corner.

Alghabra Parfums presents itself as a homage to Old Damascus, which it refers to by its traditional epithet, "the City of Jasmine," and to the memory of Mohammed Khair Alghabra, described by the brand as one of the first attars, or traditional perfumers, of the Middle East [1]. The company says it set out to build a collection that blends "imagination and inspiration from the Old City" with contemporary notes aimed at present-day buyers [4].

The fragrances are sold as Extrait de Parfum, the most concentrated form, in a prestige price tier; at the US retailer Luckyscent a 50 ml bottle is listed at roughly 160 to 175 dollars, with some scents priced higher [7]. Alghabra Parfums is distributed through several channels: retail counters in Istanbul including Beymen and Galeries Lafayette, a network of international online stores such as Luckyscent in the United States, and direct sales through its own website [3].

Coverage of the house has come mainly from specialist fragrance media rather than mainstream press. The perfume database and review site Fragrantica published an editorial column, "Dedication to Damask," tracing the brand's history and its Damascus-to-Istanbul founding story [8]. Reception there has been mixed: the column describes the fragrances as popular, long-lasting and competently made, while noting that some reviewers do not find them especially ground-breaking, and characterises the house as niche chiefly in its small size [8].

Alghabra Parfums remains active. Its products are stocked at retail in Istanbul and through international online sellers, and Fragrantica continued to record new releases into 2024 and 2025 [9]. The brand's own blog showed limited recent activity, with most new announcements appearing instead through its Instagram account and retail partners.