Inside Bharti Lalwani’s World of Art, Scent, and Sensory Storytelling

“Perfume is one way to fill my clients with a sense of delight and wonder”, says Bharti Lalwani, an independent perfumer and founder of Litrahb Perfumery, known for crafting unconventional sensory experiences and deconstructing paintings through evocative scent translations.

There is something deeply compelling about having a conversation with her — she does not mince words, remains rooted in Marxist thought, and talks about art and her creative process with remarkable passion. Unsurprisingly, she is also an art critic.

Through her unique practice that bridges art criticism and perfumery, she invites both herself and her audiences to imagine a more thoughtful and inspiring future — one shaped by the immense power of human imagination. Her work explores inventive ways of bringing the sensory experience closer to the people who have a nose for it.

Every commission she undertakes is beautifully personalised, with no room for mass-manufactured bottles, labels, or opulent packaging. For bespoke perfume commissions, she even hand-stitches silk brocade pouches. Her storytelling is top-notch as she inspires her audience to be active stakeholders in her ideas rather than passive readers.

Robb Report India: An art critic, perfumer, and now gardener, how do these different facets of your personality come together?

Bharti Lalwani: Working as an independent art critic between 2008 and 2017 helped me understand the high-stakes world we live in, whereas being a perfumer since 2018 onwards enabled me to see my place in it. The opportunity to garden in an open plot where I have lived since 2025, however, has taught me how to cultivate practical abundance and navigate my way through my immediate environment with softness.

The main reason to start gardening was to “meet” the plants and flowers I have known only as botanical extracts, and for their significance in art history. To inhale a waterlily, a lotus, or a rose blossom is quite different from experiencing their oils or synthetic equivalents. My collaborator on our public digital project “Bagh-e Hind: Scent translations of 17th and 18th Garden Paintings”, Nicolas Roth, has a lifelong gardening practice that provides a constant source of inspiration.

RR: How did your journey into the world of perfumery begin? Is there a defining moment when fragrance became more than just an interest?

BL: When the art world presented me with a dead end by 2017, perfumery opened a new way forward. I am still an art critic, but now I speak through scent to reach a broader public. As for my defining moment, being in the art world meant struggling against the current, whereas working with fragrance provided intuitive ease. Perhaps this is because perfume inherently possesses “luxury” value. While my dealings in the past boxed me into poor power dynamics, perfumery lets me lead from a future where ambition aligns with my creative instincts.

RR: Name some of the favourite fragrances you’ve created. And what are you creating currently?

BL: Some years back, I worked through a roadblock by formulating “Wearable Anger”. I could sit and fume until a path appeared. I made this scent of “tuberoses on fire” available to the public with some playful rules — only 3ml could be acquired because I believe a little goes a long way. Once the entire perfume oil was used up, the anger too had to dissipate. Till date, only women have collected this fragrance. I also lean towards joy, beauty, and lightness. “Milky Jasmine” lends the range of a voluptuous white flower with a lingering scent of steamed jasmine rice. “Butter” is what I gravitate towards during winter. And everybody's favourite is “Mitti/Wet Earth & Thunder Cloud” during the monsoon season!

I recently purchased Lakadong Turmeric powder to taste, but it was the scent that surprised me! The perfume clicked into place. So I am crafting a multi-faceted fragrance that simulates the glimmering sensation of gold sunrise on the skin through pelargonium, clementine, turmeric, and elemi!

RR: In your view, what distinguishes a truly timeless perfume from a trend-driven one?

BL: Clients I work with come home for a bespoke fragrance experience. Rather than discussing trends, we patiently untangle the notes that they resonate with the most. There are no wrong answers as we work towards an ideal that embodies their sense of self. Luxury fragrance today is as much about personal choice and emotions as it is about scent. 

RR: What is your take on it, and what does luxury mean to you personally?

BL: ‘Luxury’, I feel, layers itself upon every aspect of our lives. Personally, it means having the ability to take naps surrounded by peace and quiet. Broadly, today, luxury means having green spaces to leisure in, access to clean air, water, and produce. I envision a future we actually want to live in, so I create inventive ways to experience raw materials. Vetiver CO2, for instance, smells like groundnuts pulled out of freshly dug soil, but my formulation with dark chocolate makes it possible for my clients to taste that rich, luxurious muddy mitti.

RR: Are there any special art compositions that you have created through perfume?

BL: I build blueprints for my big and small ideas. The big one, of course, is Bagh-e Hind (with collaborator Nicholas Roth) — our digital exhibition that combines sound, scent, flavour, art history, 18th-century Urdu poetry, horticulture, etc.

Two small projects are with Dr Catherine Liu and Dr Scott Freeman. For Liu, I created two perfumes: Cigarette smoke trapped in wool carpets and Longjing “Dragon” tea, based on her olfactory memories of her time in a Soviet-era hotel in China in the early 90s.

For Freeman, I created four perfumes that traced his field research on Haitian farmers growing vetiver crop: From the point of the dig, to the transportation of the fragrant vetiver roots mingled with diesel fumes by the middleman, to the extraction of the oil far from the origin, and finally to its sanitised, expensive, luxurious version in Western perfumes.

RR: Tell us about your work with museums and private clients?

BL: Perfume is one way to fill my clients with a sense of delight and wonder. This year began with numerous artistic commissions for perfumes meant as engagement and wedding presents. I am also developing fragrances for a few fashion labels in India.

Museum Rietberg (Zurich) held an exhibition on Ragamala paintings last year, for which Roth and I were invited to deconstruct paintings through scent translations. One folio, for instance, illustrated the Asavari Ragini dressed in peacock feathers, surrounded by numerous animals atop a hill — a snake slithers, a lion roars, rain clouds roll into the frame. Visitors could hold up a funnel to their nose and smell “wet fur, mud, and lightning”. This unlocked the sensation of a moisture-filled atmosphere, where lightning, painted on the upper left corner of the folio, could imminently strike!