Lattafa

Lattafa is a fragrance house based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, owned by Lattafa Perfumes LLC [8]. It builds what it calls authentic Arabian perfumes, sold at accessible prices, and remains an active, family-run business now in its third generation. Over the past few years the company has become one of the most widely sold Arabian fragrance makers internationally, a rise driven largely by viral attention on TikTok.

The house presents itself as a maker of premium-feeling scents that most people can afford, with a catalogue it describes as spanning more than 2,000 products, from mass-market favourites to higher-end collections. It is sold in over 120 countries.

Accounts of when Lattafa began do not fully agree. The most commonly cited date is 1980, when, according to the fragrance retailer IntenseOud, Sheikh Shahid Ahmad founded the company with co-founder Shoaib Iqbal [6]. Other sources place the start later: Gulf News, profiling the company in 2021, described it as founded "more than three decades ago," which points to the early 1990s [5], while one fragrance blog gives "late 1980s" [7] and another lists 2012 — most likely the year the present LLC was registered rather than the year the business began [8]. The brand's own website does not state a founding year, so all of these dates come from outside reporting.

The founder's story is more consistently told. According to Gulf News, Sheikh Shahid Ahmad arrived in Dubai from Pakistan and spent thirteen years working at his uncle's perfume store before setting up on his own. The business grew from a small attar and fragrance trading operation into a manufacturer, and is today run by the third generation of the founding family.

The company operates under Lattafa Perfumes LLC, based in Dubai. It remains privately held and family-run, with research and development historically led by co-founder Shoaib Iqbal. No acquisitions or outside ownership changes are documented.

Lattafa frames fragrance as, in its words, "a universal language" and "a personal journey." The company says every scent it makes "weaves together the essence of kindness (Latif) and pleasantness (Lateefa)" — a play on the Arabic roots of its name. Its stated core values are integrity, honesty and dedication, and it describes innovation as being "in our DNA" [5].

Commercially, the house positions itself on value: making fragrances meant to rival luxury brands in quality and performance while selling them at prices that, as one retailer summarised the approach, "made premium perfumery accessible." The company has said its products are crafted to resonate with a modern audience, particularly Gen Z. Manufacturing is kept in-house in the UAE, which the company presents as central to its quality control.

Lattafa's range is built around warm, sweet, oriental profiles, leaning on notes such as oud, amber, musk, rose, saffron, vanilla and myrrh. Oud — the resinous, smoky agarwood note central to Middle Eastern perfumery — features heavily across the line.

The catalogue includes a long list of named scents, among them Asad, Yara, Bade'e Al Oud, Nebras and Raghba, the last often described as the brand's first internationally recognised perfume. Its breakout product, however, is Khamrah, an eau de parfum launched in 2022 that became one of the best-selling Arabian fragrances worldwide [8]. Built around sweeter, spiced notes including dates and myrrh, Khamrah is frequently presented as an affordable alternative to Kilian's much pricier Angels' Share — one trade magazine noted Khamrah selling for under €15 against the Kilian scent's roughly €250 [10].

To address counterfeiting, Lattafa uses a 3D holographic security label with a scannable QR code, which routes buyers to a verification page to confirm a product is genuine.

Lattafa's prominence has been driven more by consumer and social-media attention than by industry awards; no formal awards are documented. Khamrah in particular drew very large numbers on TikTok — figures cited range from over 50 million views in one fragrance review [9] to more than 100 million in another account [8] — and both Khamrah and the fruity, sweet scent Yara have reportedly sold out repeatedly on the back of that popularity [11]. The company has also been profiled in regional and trade press, including a 2021 Gulf News feature describing it as a "Made in UAE perfume dynasty" [5] and a 2024 piece in Luxus Magazine on its TikTok-driven success [10].

Lattafa is active. Its official blog was updated as recently as 29 May 2026, its social accounts remain in use, and it continues to operate across more than 120 countries, employing over 3,000 people according to its own site. Independent coverage from 2024 onward describes a business still expanding internationally on the strength of its viral hits.