About me

I'm Laila. I was born and grew up in Kuwait, in a family of merchants.

My family traded in everything, and they built the ships that carried it. That is not an unusual history in Kuwait. The town was built on the water, on boats made by hand and sailed out to India, to Basra, down the coast of East Africa, and home again loaded with timber, cloth, spice, rice and resin. Fragrance came in on those same routes. Oud, sandalwood, rose and amber were not exotic imports in a Kuwaiti house, they were part of how a home smelled and how guests were received.

I grew up understanding goods as something chosen rather than something stocked. A merchant handles the material, knows where it came from, and answers for it. That is the part of my family I have tried to keep.

I studied English literature and I work in education, so most of my working life has been spent on how things are explained. You will find my research in the Journal. I want you to know what is in a bottle, which oud it is and where it was distilled, and why it was chosen, without having to translate marketing language to get there.

The rest is that I have always made things. I blend, I write, I cook, I build.

This website is my canvas and while I will use it as a tool to sell my creations, you will also find me rambling and documenting my experiments as I create.