The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Abi Roya is a perfume that asks you to slow down. Conceived in 2024 by perfumer Adill Ali, it grew out of a fascination with the lotus not as a single flower but as a spectrum. The scent gathers camphor and grapefruit as its opening, a cool, clarifying duo that opens a path into a garden blooming with blue, white, and pink lotus, gardenia, and mimosa in quiet harmony. There's something deliberately hushed about the whole composition, a garden held in soft focus rather than a bold bouquet. The camphor cuts the floral sweetness just enough to keep the air around it cool, and the grapefruit adds a faint, bitter brightness that lingers at the edges. The scent is meant to live on the skin, not above it. Each note seems tuned to whisper rather than announce its presence.
What's unusual here is the lotus rainbow itself. Abi Roya gathers three varieties, blue, white, and pink, and surrounds them with gardenia and osmanthus for a layered floral effect. The opening camphor and grapefruit give the florals something to breathe against, a cool sharpness that keeps the powdery heart from tipping into sweetness. Gardenia brings a creamy weight to the blend, a soft, almost buttery fullness that gives the bouquet its body. The base of cedarwood, guaiac wood, hay, and maté adds a dry, sun-warmed earthiness that grounds the whole thing.
The evolution
The opening belongs to camphor. Cool, almost mentholated, the kind of clarity that makes you inhale twice. Grapefruit slices through it with a tart brightness, and juniper berries add a green, gin-like bitterness at the edges. None of it shouts, but the composition is unmistakably clean and sharp, like opening a window into a cold morning. Soon after, the camphor steps back and the florals arrive almost as a single gesture: blue lotus opens watery and mineral, white lotus comes in soft and creamy, pink lotus adds a faint fruity sweetness, and gardenia thickens everything with its buttery, almost coconut-like richness. Mimosa dusts the whole heart with a powdery, honeyed haze, its delicate, almost waxy florals settling over the lotus trio like a fine veil. Osmanthus hides in the folds, lending a soft apricot-skin warmth that keeps the bouquet from going cold or clinical.
Cultural impact
Abi Roya wears like a private ritual. It attracts the kind of wearer who values restraint over statement, someone who wants a floral that doesn't announce itself across a room but rewards those who lean closer. The lotus at its center feels less like a decorative note and more like a quiet invitation, a flower that has long carried spiritual weight across cultures and now finds a new vocabulary in perfume. The cool camphor opening and the warm, grassy drydown give it a duality that feels distinctly contemporary, neither fully Eastern nor Western in its leanings.
The House
HunaynHunayn is a London‑based fragrance house launched in early 2024. The brand draws on Islamic heritage, naming itself after the historic Battle of Hunayn, and positions its scents as contemporary reinterpretations of ancient olfactory traditions. Within its first two years the house released a series of niche perfumes—including Elysian Santal II, Al Multazam and Bakhoor Cologne—that have been noted for their balanced use of regional ingredients and modern compositional techniques.
The Creator
Adill AliAdill favors a minimalist architecture, often building around a single dominant note before layering subtle accents. He reaches for Indian attars, warm spices, and dry woods, then introduces unexpected touches of citrus or marine accords to keep the composition lively.
