Heritage
A house, in its own words
The story of Nissaba begins with Sébastien Tissot, a chemist who spent years at the multinational fragrance lab Firmenich. After leaving the corporate world, he turned his attention to the people who tend the fields that yield perfume‑grade botanicals. In 2021 he founded Nissaba in Geneva, naming the house after the Sumerian goddess of grain and harvest, a nod to the brand’s agricultural focus. The first public release, CHACO, arrived in 2022 and was built around a single plant harvested in the Chaco region of South America. The following year the house introduced four new scents—GRANDE ILE, TIERRA MAYA, PROVENCE and SULAWESI—each anchored in a distinct terroir. 2023 also saw the brand open a boutique space at Selfridges, London, marking its first permanent retail presence outside Switzerland. In 2024 Nissaba added BERBERA, inspired by frankincense, myrrh and opoponax from Somaliland’s port city, and MALLI NADU, a fragrance that celebrates the wild herbs of the Pacific island of Malli Nadu. The 2025 launch of LES ALPES, a tribute to Alpine herbs, completes a five‑year plan that aims to cover five continents with a single‑origin perfume each year. Throughout its growth, Nissaba has kept a steady partnership with local growers, channeling a portion of each sale back into community projects that improve sustainable harvesting and fair wages. The brand’s modest but consistent expansion reflects a philosophy that values depth over breadth, allowing each fragrance to mature in the market before the next terroir is explored. Nissaba’s creative vision rests on the idea that a scent can act as a map of its origin. The house believes that the story of a perfume begins long before the bottle is sealed, in the fields where the plant is cultivated, the hands that tend it, and the climate that shapes its aroma. To honor that narrative, every Nissaba fragrance is formulated from extracts that come from a single location, without blending materials from disparate regions. The brand also commits a share of revenue to the same communities that supply the raw material, funding initiatives such as seed‑saving programs, education on sustainable harvesting, and infrastructure improvements. This model positions the perfume as a conduit for ecological and social stewardship rather than a mere luxury item. Nissaba avoids the typical marketing hyperbole; instead, it lets the provenance of each ingredient speak for itself, inviting wearers to experience a place they may never visit. The house’s statements, made in interviews and on its website, repeatedly stress transparency, responsibility and a respect for the land that yields the fragrance.
