Tola

Tola is a niche fragrance house based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, founded by Emirati creative director and self-taught perfumer Dhaher Bin Dhaher. The company translates Gulf-region olfactory traditions — particularly the family ritual of bukhoor, the perfumed agarwood incense burned in Emirati homes — into Western-style niche perfumery. Its name comes from the tola, a pre-metric unit of weight historically used to measure precious materials such as gold and oil.

The house takes that idea literally: every Tola fragrance is bottled at 12 ml, which the company states is the equivalent of one tola. The brand remains active, with an operating online store, GCC retail stockists, and a fragrance range that has grown beyond its original six scents.

Dhaher Bin Dhaher was introduced to perfumery by his mother, who, according to the company, mixed perfume oils and made bukhoor following a secret tradition passed down through generations of Gulf families. By his own account he grew up surrounded by fragrance, and his interest in the craft only deepened as he travelled and experimented with ingredients.

In an interview with the French olfactory magazine Nez, Dhaher described the specific moment the idea took shape: during a trip to London with his mother and eldest sister, the three discussed the emotions and memories that scent can carry. Watching his mother's skill — she produced roughly 100 kilos of hand-assembled bakhoor a year for family and friends — he proposed commercialising her recipes [5]. Alongside the perfume house, Dhaher has worked as a creative director for a data-protection company serving the Abu Dhabi government [5].

The brand name itself was chosen as a tribute to the tola's role in weighing rare commodities. The company explains that a rustic gold colour once characterised tola weights, gradually shifting to emerald green with age — a transformation it adopted as a visual metaphor for the brand.

The house's founding date is reported differently by its own materials and by the fragrance press. Tola's website states that the brand name was conceived in 2013, presenting that year as the origin point [1]. Several niche-fragrance publications — including Nez, CaFleureBon and Anthoscents — instead date the company to 2010, treating 2013 as the year the products launched rather than the year the brand began [5][8]. CaFleureBon frames the two dates as complementary: the brand entity established in 2010, with the first fragrances released in 2013 [8]. Both years are recorded in the brand's timeline.

The debut range was the Voyage Collection, a set of six fragrances: Anbar, Gulbadan, Shahzadah, Misqaal, Misk Begum and Masha. The collection was conceived as an imaginary journey tracing Arabian perfumery from its origins to the present, with each scent framed as a story in the tradition of the Thousand and One Nights. The line-up has since expanded, with the brand's homepage featuring later releases such as Amaya, Alhada, Kaif, Bishra and Mehmaan.

Tola positions itself as a bridge between two perfume worlds. The company describes its output as "the quintessence of memories, of stories within stories," with each fragrance meant to tell an age-old tale. In the Nez interview, Dhaher summarised the mission plainly: "I'm spending more and more of my time breaking down barriers between olfactory cultures" [5]. The aim, as the fragrance press has reported it, was to build perfumes suited to international markets rather than conventional Arabian scents alone [8].

That cross-cultural framing has shaped where the house sells. Dhaher told Nez that Europe, where oriental fragrances are well received, has been especially receptive, and named Italy as his largest market by volume [5].

The house works chiefly in oud and oriental territory, drawing on agarwood, amber, musk, attars and the bukhoor tradition at the centre of its origin story. Reviewers have generally placed it at the luxury end of niche perfumery; the Kafkaesque blog, reviewing the range in 2014, described it as ultra-premium and cited a price of $285 for a 45 ml bottle [6].

Individual scents have drawn varied responses. Anbar, an amber composition, was described by Kafkaesque as an intense bouquet of plum, caramel and vanilla [6], while Gulbadan proved more polarising — CaFleureBon called it "a real adventure in olfactory oddness," noting prominent oud set against fruits and florals [8]. At the lighter end, Misk Begum has been characterised as the cleanest of the range, a musky floral with minimal exoticism.

Beyond fragrance, the brand's catalogue extends to home and linen products, reed diffusers and bukhoor. Production is centred on Dhaher's Dubai laboratory, where he develops the initial trials and accords before composition houses finalise the formulas; he has said the company works with the supplier IFF and that its products meet IFRA safety standards [5].

Tola has been covered by several established niche-fragrance publications. Nez ran an in-depth interview with Dhaher about the brand's cross-cultural mission, Kafkaesque and CaFleureBon reviewed the Voyage Collection in detail, and Haute Living profiled the founder in 2016. No formal industry awards are recorded in the available sources.

Tola remains active. Its website is operational and sells across several categories — fragrances, home and linen, reed diffusers and bukhoor — and the brand's about and founder pages were last updated in early 2024 [2]. Retail listings show stockists across the Gulf, including locations in Dubai and Riyadh, while editorial sources describe wider distribution in Europe and the United States. The expansion of the range beyond the original six fragrances points to continued output.