Gissah Samples

Gissah is Kuwaiti, not Emirati - a detail most UK listings get wrong. Founded in 2019, the name means "story" in Arabic, and the house has grown into a substantial Gulf retail presence across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Its reputation rests on the Valley series. Imperial Valley is the flagship and the most reviewed thing the house has made, with Hudson Valley and La Luna Valley working the same rich, polished register at different temperatures. Mavro sits outside that family. Gissah works with French perfumers including Philippine Courtiere and Theo Belmas, and it shows - these are better constructed than the price suggests.

Gissah is also genuinely hard to buy in Britain. It sells through its own stores in the Gulf rather than through UK retail, which means most people here have read about Imperial Valley without ever smelling it. That scarcity is why our Gissah decants sit at a slightly higher price than the rest of the range: the bottles cost more to get hold of.

Four Gissah fragrances, in 2ml, 5ml and 10ml, decanted in the UK from sealed bottles. For a house this difficult to find, a sample is the realistic way in.