Delhi store sells aroma of monsoon’s first rain

Won't it feel great to smell the first rain of monsoon? Surely, when you find that aroma in a bottle of perfume.

It might sound impossible, to capture that fragrance of monsoon’s first rain in a perfume bottle, but Delhi's popular perfume store, Gulab Singh Johrimal, has made it possible, living up to its motto "Let's join the essence world”.

Aarti Betigeri of BBC Travel spotted the shop where the essence of nature is bottled in a wide variety of aroma.  She shared and wrote many enchanting piece about it.

Now what is a perfume? It is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma distilled from compounds, flowers, fruits or natural elements which give the human body a pleasant scent.

The formula is to blend extracted oils. After blending the oils to get the desired scent, alcohol is mixed into the concoction to dilute the ingredients.

So how exactly is it made? “To recreate the smell, we get lots of broken earthenware in big copper vessels, put water in that and heat it up,” Gundhi, owner of the shop explained.

The steam from the vessel is passed over sandalwood oil; the oil captures the scent from the steam, and the water is separated. “When you smell this perfume, the base note is sandalwood, but the top note is the first rain after summers,” he continued. “It’s the smell of the monsoon.”

Perfumes have been used from times immemorial. Ancient texts and archaeological excavations revealed use of fragrances by the early civilizations. Modern perfume that began in the late 19th century and it became commercial with mixing of chemical compounds like vanillin or coumarin.

However, Gulab Sing Johrimal, established in 1816, has been able to retain the long lost tradition of mixing earthly compounds to create perfumes for more than 200 years. Their only aim is to satisfy customer with the wide variety of products with natural touch.

Through generations, the shop is run by the family. Praful Gundhi, who runs the shop now, says: “Me and my brothers are seventh generation in this shop. Our nephew has recently joined the business which will begin the eighth generation.”

The first rain of monsoon brings down the wet soil’s smell. And Gulab Sing Johrimal has been able to recreate that to everyone's surprise.

The smell comes with a rich, warm and woody fragrance just like the juicy scent of the first rains hitting the parched summer earth, bringing a sense of relief.