Gissah means story in Arabic. The house takes the word literally. On its own site it says it was born in Kuwait in 2019, which makes it one of the younger names in Gulf perfumery.
The house sits in the modern Middle Eastern niche, the wave of Gulf brands that take the region's love of oud, leather and musk and cut it with a cleaner, more Western structure. The bottles are heavy and dark. The scents are built to carry across a room and hold for hours in heat.
Its best-known release is Imperial Valley, launched in 2021. It opens on pink pepper, bergamot and davana, moves through rosemary, amber and oud, then dries down to leather, vetiver and musk. The effect is a polished leather-and-oud scent that leans masculine but wears unisex. It became the fragrance most people meet Gissah through.
Mavro is the other name that travels, a sweeter, spicier counterpoint that shares the same appetite for depth and staying power.
Now the honest note. Gissah is a young brand selling at premium prices, and it has no long heritage to lean on the way a 19th-century French house might. What it has is the blend. The leather-oud accord under Imperial Valley is well made and instantly likeable, and likeability is doing most of the work, not history.
A scent like that does not need a passport. It needs the right oils and the right hand.
Our Imperial is our take on Imperial Valley, and Mavro Nior our take on Mavro, both UK-made sprays at 35% concentration. See the full Gissah collection.
