June in Dubai is precisely the season when even the most committed urbanite begins craving an olfactory escape – something green, something fresh, something that doesn’t smell like the inside of a parked Land Cruiser. Cult Gaia’s new Mast Eau de Parfum, I’m pleased to report, arrives like a perfectly timed breeze off the Arabian Gulf, albeit one bottled inside a small sculptural object that looks poised to moonlight as a Brancusi paperweight. We test the brand’s new vegan Eau de Parfum – a Persian-inspired, sun-drenched scent that bridges East and West, priced at AED 865.
For those who’ve spent the last decade curating a life that photographs well, Cult Gaia needs no introduction. Jasmin Larian Hekmat, its founder and creative director, has built a near-cult following – pun fully acknowledged – by insisting that fashion be wearable art rather than mere wardrobe. The brand’s Ark bag, a crescent of bamboo that has slung itself across shoulders from Coachella to the Croisette, became a kind of visual shibboleth for a certain aesthetically fluent tribe. Now Hekmat turns her gaze to the vanity table, launching a trio of fine fragrances: Mast, Zan and Noor, each named with a nod to her Persian heritage. The collection doesn’t merely smell good; it behaves like an objet d’art, the sort of thing you display beside a first-edition photography monograph and secretly hope someone asks about.
Mast, which draws from the Persian word for “intoxicating ecstasy”, is the undisputed summer romance of the trio. In a region where perfume is worn almost as a second currency – layered, reapplied and projected with the subtlety of a fireworks display – Mast takes a quieter, more subversive route. It is an olfactory whisper that somehow lingers for hours, a soft-power scent for the city’s creative class. At first spritz, you’re met with Italian bergamot so sun-ripened it almost tastes like chilled limoncello on a terrace overlooking the sea. Then comes the unexpected: coconut. Not the sun-lotion cliché of student holiday regrets, but a creamy, lactonic murmur, like the memory of a coconut sorbet served at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Orange blossom threads through the composition – a familiar Middle Eastern note – but here it is restrained: less bridal celebration, more a whisper drifting from a Capri garden at dusk.
What gives Mast its structure, and saves it from becoming merely a pretty citrus splash, is the Haitian vetiver. Earthy, rooty and faintly smoky, it anchors the fragrance with the sort of elegant green dryness found in classic niche perfumery, rendered here with a lighter touch. The base is where the “intoxicating” aspect truly earns its name: Brazilian tonka bean, also known as cumaru, lends an almond-like warmth, while a measured dose of Norlimbanol – that fashionable woody-aromatic molecule – provides an addictive amber glow that clings to linen shirts and cashmere throws with remarkable persistence. Velvet musk rounds everything out, soft as a desert sunset viewed through a gauze curtain. Officially, Mast is classified as an Oriental Floral fragrance, but it wears with a fluidity that makes a mockery of gendered perfume marketing, settling as comfortably on a man’s pulse points as on a woman’s collarbone.
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The bottle itself deserves a paragraph-length stare. In an era when too many luxury fragrances arrive in flacons resembling props from a low-budget science-fiction film, Cult Gaia’s vessel is a masterclass in tactile restraint. Smooth and weighty, it evokes a river stone shaped by centuries of patience, crowned with a cap that might have been borrowed from a futuristic chess set designed by the late Zaha Hadid. It is the sort of object that makes you want to reorganise an entire shelf simply to give it proper prominence. Hekmat has long insisted that her accessories function as objets d’art, and here she extends that philosophy to a medium that often settles for little more than a label and a cap. For a city transfixed by architectural icons – from the silhouette of the Burj Khalifa to the calligraphic curves of the Museum of the Future – this bottle feels like a miniature addition to the skyline, albeit one that slips neatly into a carry-on.
Clean beauty devotees will find their principles intact. Mast is vegan, cruelty-free and formulated without the usual catalogue of contentious ingredients: parabens, sulphates, phthalates, BHA, mineral oils and formaldehyde-releasing preservatives among them. Unlike many clean fragrances that disappear faster than a New Year’s resolution by 2 January, however, Mast boasts notable longevity thanks to its 25 per cent oil concentration. Cult Gaia understands that its clientele is unlikely to be reapplying fragrance in the back of a taxi. They want a scent that can move seamlessly from an 11 a.m. meeting at Alserkal Avenue to a late dinner at Mimi Kakushi without losing momentum.
Context matters, and Mast arrives in a fragrance landscape increasingly dominated by brands wielding the word “niche” as a marketing instrument. What distinguishes Hekmat’s approach is her refusal to treat perfume as an afterthought or a licensing exercise. Instead, the trio reads as an olfactory extension of the Cult Gaia universe – equal parts heiress and earth goddess, architectural and sensual. The name “Gaia”, after all, references the primordial Greek goddess associated with creation itself. Hekmat, ever the astute storyteller, has often suggested that strong brands unite like-minded people through shared aesthetic values. That may explain why spotting a Cult Gaia piece across a crowded room so often prompts a knowing nod – a silent acknowledgement of shared visual literacy.
At AED 865 for 50 ml, Mast occupies that coveted accessible-luxury sweet spot currently favoured by Millennial and Gen Z fragrance collectors. It costs less than some prestige niche offerings, yet feels far more considered than an impulse purchase at an airport duty-free counter. Samples have already begun circulating among Dubai’s beauty insiders, arriving in minimalist press packaging that suggests the fragrance doesn’t need to raise its voice – it simply assumes you will eventually discover it. One imagines it will soon drift through the corridors of ICD Brookfield Place and the lounges of One&Only One Za’abeel, lingering around the city’s creative directors, curators and collectors as they discuss the latest exhibitions and installations.
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There is a gentle irony, of course, in a fragrance named after intoxication flourishing in a city where indulgence is often carefully regulated. Yet Mast is not about excess. It is about that quieter form of ecstasy that arrives when perfectly balanced vetiver meets sun-warmed skin just as the evening call to prayer fades into the hum of a Thursday night. It is transportive without becoming escapist – a Persian-inspired fantasy that feels entirely at home among the dunes, skyscrapers and perpetually chilled shopping malls of Dubai. If you are not already a member of the Cult Gaia congregation, consider Mast your initiation ritual. No ceremonial robes required, although a well-cut linen co-ord would certainly not go amiss.
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