Nissaba

Nissaba is a niche perfume house registered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 2021 [13]. It was created by Sébastien Tissot, who previously led sustainable sourcing of natural ingredients at the fragrance and ingredients group DSM-Firmenich, together with Eric Stucky de Quay, who brought a background in distribution [2]. The company builds its fragrances around single-origin natural extracts from named growing regions and directs a share of its sales to agricultural schools in those regions.

The brand takes its name from Nissaba, a Sumerian goddess associated with grain, writing and, in the company's telling, the patronage of the earliest schools — a reference the house ties to its themes of agriculture and knowledge transfer. Nissaba remains active: its most recent widely covered release, Berbera, appeared in 2024.

Nissaba was conceived by Sébastien Tissot after what the company describes as a long career leading the sustainable sourcing of natural ingredients at DSM-Firmenich. According to the brand, Tissot set out to build "a fragrance brand founded on genuine commitment and uncompromising ethics," pairing desirable scents with measurable social impact [2]. In 2021 he was joined by Eric Stucky de Quay, whose role the company frames as bringing distribution expertise "to place the brand in the right places with the right partners."

The founding idea, in Tissot's own words, rests on a dual ambition: offering "a 'desirable brand' with a strong, differentiated DNA" while financing farming projects, to which the company says it allocates five percent of its sales. The house lists genuine commitment, ingredient traceability and community support among its core values.

Sources disagree on when Nissaba began, largely because the company's incorporation and its first commercial fragrances did not coincide. The Swiss commercial registry records Nissaba Parfums SA — earlier named Nissaba Fragances Ltd — as incorporated in Geneva on 12 October 2021, and the brand's own account likewise gives a founding year of 2021 [13]. The niche-fragrance publication ÇaFleureBon dates the founding to 2022, which appears to reflect the first product launches [10], while the Paris retailer Jovoy states the brand "launched in 2023," most likely referring to its arrival on that retailer's shelves [11].

Berbera, released in 2024, was composed by perfumers Fabrice Pellegrin and Coralie Spicher and was included in ÇaFleureBon's Best of 2024 selection [10]. In October 2024 the company increased its registered capital from 125,000 to 197,601 Swiss francs [13].

The brand's location is recorded differently across sources. Nissaba's about page summarised its headquarters as France, framed as EU operations [2]. The Swiss registry, however, lists the legal entity Nissaba Parfums SA at Rue du Rhône 65 in Geneva, with founder Sébastien Tissot recorded as a resident of Veyrier, a French commune on the Geneva border [13]. Geneva is therefore the seat of the registered company, while the founder is a French national operating from the city.

Nissaba positions itself within what it calls "true niche perfumery," and describes its work as "preserving the true art of perfumery" through nuanced compositions meant to evolve over time. The company emphasises a "slow, deep, deliberate creation process" and says each of its scents begins not from a brief modelled on existing fragrances but from a curated selection of single-origin natural extracts. By its own account, perfumers are given creative freedom without budget limits on naturals, competitive briefs, consumer testing or a predefined olfactive family or gender, and the house permits up to ten percent synthetic molecules to round out a composition. Its stated positioning is summarised in the taglines "Conscious luxury, grounded in nature" and "Fragrances from earth."

The range centres on seven fragrances — Berbera, Chaco, Grande Île, Malli Nadu, Provence, Sulawesi and Tierra Maya — alongside an extrait de parfum, Les Alpes, and a discovery sample set. Each is built around naturals tied to a specific terroir, among them hay absolute from the French Alps, black pepper CO₂ extract from Madagascar, vetiver from Tamil Nadu, benzoin from North Sumatra and pyrogenised olibanum (frankincense) from Somaliland.

Individual scents have drawn attention from specialist reviewers. Berbera, focused on resins from the Somaliland port of the same name, was described in ÇaFleureBon as "refreshingly different" from typical incense fragrances — "lithe, mysterious and so, so woody" [10]. A Fragrantica reviewer called Malli Nadu the best natural jasmine soliflor they had encountered [14]. The fragrances are sold directly through the company's website and through niche retailers including Jovoy in Paris and Agence De Parfumerie in the United Kingdom.

Sustainability is central to how Nissaba presents itself. The company says it directs five percent of its sales to agricultural education projects, naming partner schools in Paraguay (Mbaracayú), Madagascar (Mahadera) and India (Boys Town), which it links to training in yerba maté and petitgrain regions, vanilla farming and floriculture respectively [4]. The house describes a zero-waste refill system in which customers return empty bottles for reuse, and states that its formulations contain only fragrance concentrate, organic alcohol and water, excluding colorants, UV filters, parabens, phthalates and several other substances; its products, it says, are vegan and not tested on animals.

On materials, the brand reports lightweight glass bottles of around 88 grams, an estimated carbon footprint of roughly 150 grams of CO₂ per 100 ml flacon, label-free laser-engraved bottles, fragrance ribbons made from upcycled polyester, and FSC-certified paper and wood components. At least 90 percent of its ingredients, the company says, come from natural origins, with a stated preference for regenerative sources [4].

Nissaba is an active company. The Swiss registry lists Nissaba Parfums SA as active, with its capital increase recorded in October 2024 and a further capital clause noted in early 2026. The most recent prominently documented activity is the 2024 launch of Berbera and its inclusion in ÇaFleureBon's Best of 2024. Within the Nordic market, the brand's distribution recorded for this entry is limited to Norway.