Kayali means "my imagination" in Arabic. The house is young. Mona Kattan founded it in 2018, and it grew quickly into one of the most talked-about gourmand lines on the shelf.
It started as an offshoot of Huda Beauty, the makeup company run by her sister Huda Kattan. Kayali launched with four scents at once: Citrus 08, Vanilla 28, Musk 12 and Elixir 11. The numbers are a house habit, a shorthand for each blend.
One of those four did the heavy lifting. Vanilla 28 is a warm, boozy Madagascan vanilla with brown sugar and tonka, and it became the scent people bought Kayali for in the first place. Sweet gourmands are the identity here. Marshmallow, pistachio, candied lychee, vanilla in a dozen forms.
The ownership changed in 2025. Mona Kattan teamed up with the investment firm General Atlantic to buy Kayali out of Huda Beauty and run it as a standalone company. By then it was one of the best-selling fragrance brands at Sephora. She built the brand, then she bought it outright.
The part worth knowing is about the scent, not the deal. Gourmand accords are some of the most reproducible in all of perfumery. Vanilla, sugar, tonka and musk are well-mapped materials, and a good lab can rebuild a blend like Vanilla 28 so it smells nearly identical on skin. With a sweet scent, the trend and the marketing set the price far more than the chemistry does.
If the vanilla is what you are chasing, our V28 tracks Vanilla 28 and Boujee Mallow follows Yum Boujee Marshmallow, both UK-made at 35% concentration. See the full Kayali collection, or read the best Kayali dupes in the UK.
