Aroma360 CEO Benny Aboud on scent, sleep and Dubai

1. You've built a phone retail chain, a marketing company and now a scent brand, and kept it alive through COVID by pivoting to e-commerce. What's the thread that connects it all?

I've always been drawn to businesses where you win by owning the customer relationship. In phone retail it was the store and the conversation. In marketing it was understanding what makes people respond. With scent, it's both: an emotional product you have to experience to understand. When COVID closed the stores, we moved online fast, because the relationship with the customer was what mattered, not the storefront. Now we've come full circle, with e-commerce and showrooms working together.

2. Why does scent affect how we feel so strongly? Which scents do you recommend for sleep, for focus and for unwinding?

Scent is the one sense that goes almost straight to the part of the brain that handles emotion and memory. That's why a smell can take you back to a childhood kitchen in a second. In Dubai, where fragrance is already part of hospitality and everyday life, people understand this instinctively.

• Sleep: Dream On, a soft, calming scent for winding down at night.
• Focus: California Love, fresh and uplifting for a clear head.
• Unwinding: Sweetest Taboo, warm and cozy for the end of the day.

3. Social media is full of posts warning that home fragrances and diffusers release toxic chemicals or disrupt our hormones. What would you say to someone who's worried, and what does responsible, healthy scenting look like at home: how much, how often, and with what ventilation?

I understand the concern, and I take it seriously. Not every product is the same, so I'd look at how it's made and how it's used.

• Our diffusers use cold-air diffusion, with no heat and no water, and are designed to be safe for homes with children and pets.
• Healthy scenting means the right device for the size of the space, a moderate intensity, and fresh air in the home.
• Run it all the time. Scent works best when it's a constant, gentle presence in the home, not something that comes on and off. The key is to set the intensity to suit the room, so it's a light background note rather than something overpowering.
• Start low, since intensity is adjustable. Our devices have intensity controls, either on the app or on a remote, and a low-oil indicator so you always know what's going on.
• In Dubai, homes are often sealed with air conditioning for much of the year, so it's worth opening the windows or balcony doors on cooler days to let fresh air in, and turning the intensity down if anyone feels sensitive.

4. The Mini Pro is your best seller. Who is it for, and why build it around the Pro-Pod system?

Our best seller is actually the SPKR, but the Mini Pro is the one I'd point most people to as a first step, and it's built around the Pro-Pod for a reason.

The Mini Pro is our easiest way in. It suits anyone who wants real scent in a bedroom, office or small living space, without a big commitment or a complicated setup. It's built around the Pro-Pod because the pod makes it simple. You swap scents in seconds, with no mess. It also lets us build a whole ecosystem of scents around one device. For a Dubai apartment, it's the perfect size for a bedroom or a home office.

And for the time you spend outside the home, there's the Smart Car Diffuser. In Dubai, we spend a lot of time in the car, whether it's Sheikh Zayed Road in rush hour, the school run, or a Friday trip to the Marina. It turns that time into a better part of your day.

• Easy to use: it clips in, and you swap scents with a simple cartridge.
• Five intensity levels, so it's never overpowering in a small space like a car.
• Made for the car: it's for in-car use only and runs on its own dedicated oils.
• Looks the part: it comes in finishes like Silver, as well as special editions such as Disney and Pink, so you can match your car's interior or give it as a gift.
• A great gift and an easy first step into Aroma360. It's affordable, and Dubai is a gifting culture.

5. SPKR XL pairs scent with sound. What's the idea behind combining the two at home?

The SPKR is our best seller, and I think it's because it makes so much sense. Both scent and sound change the mood of a room, so why not do them together? The SPKR XL is a statement piece. It's a speaker that also fills the space with scent, so it works as part of the design of the room, not as another gadget on a shelf.

• Covers up to about 800 sq. ft., which suits a Dubai living room, a majlis or an open-plan apartment on the Marina or Downtown.
• Cold-air diffusion, with no heat and no water, and safe for homes with children and pets.
• Comes with a remote, so you can turn the scent intensity up for guests and down for a quiet evening.
• It stands tall at about 35 inches, so it's a feature piece on the floor, not something to hide in a corner.
• It runs on the Pro-Pod, so changing scents is quick and clean.

Music and fragrance together make a space feel like an experience, not just a room. It's perfect for entertaining, which is a big part of life in Dubai.

6. DaVinci and VanGogh scent a whole home, and VanGogh can connect to the HVAC. How should a Dubai family choose between them?

It comes down to the size of the home and whether you want to use the HVAC. Both use cold-air diffusion, with no heat and no water.

• DaVinci: standalone, for roughly 1,200 sq. ft. It's a good fit for an apartment in Downtown, JLT or the Marina, or the main living area of a home. It has Bluetooth app control with scheduling and intensity settings, so you can have the home smell great before you get back from work. It has an electronic lock and a low-oil indicator, which suits homes with children. It's the approachable entry point to whole-home scenting.
• VanGogh: hybrid, for about 1,800 sq. ft. It can connect to the HVAC, which is ideal for a villa in Arabian Ranches or the Palm, where the air conditioning is running much of the year and carries the scent through every room.
• For a very large villa, our Museum range covers up to about 3,000 sq. ft. on the HVAC.

If you're not sure, start with the DaVinci in the main space, and grow into the VanGogh when you want to scent the whole house.

7. Your second UAE store opens at Nakheel Mall, Palm Jumeirah, on 15 November. Why Dubai, and what will visitors experience there?

For us, Dubai isn't a leap. It's the natural next step in bringing what we've built in the West to the GCC.

We've spent years learning how Americans bring scent into their homes, through our showrooms, our community of subscribers and a lot of listening. What we kept finding is that the idea isn't local. People everywhere want their home to feel like somewhere special. And the Gulf has always understood this better than most. Fragrance is part of hospitality here. It's in how you welcome a guest, how you perfume a home, and how you mark an occasion. So we're not asking people in Dubai to adopt a new habit. We're giving an existing tradition a modern, effortless format.

The timing also feels right. Dubai is one of the most design-conscious, hospitality-minded and fast-moving cities in the world, with homes that are built for entertaining, and air conditioning running much of the year, which is ideal for whole-home scenting. It's also a hub, so it's a strong base for reaching the wider region.

Our Nakheel Mall showroom on Palm Jumeirah opens on 15 November. It's our second UAE store, and it builds on the first. Visitors will find:

• The full range to see and try, from the Smart Car Diffuser to the SPKR XL, and from the DaVinci to the VanGogh and our larger systems.
• Our team, who will help you find the right device for your space and the right scent for how you live.
• Plans made for the region, including interest-free payments that are Sharia compliant, and free shipping on our UAE site.

We want it to feel like walking into a well-scented home, not a shop. Come in, take your time, and leave with something that makes your own home feel like yours.

8. If our readers change one thing about how they scent their home this month, what should it be?

Scent your home on purpose, and keep it going. Pick one room and one scent, and run your diffuser all the time, so it becomes part of the feel of your home. Set the intensity to a level that's pleasant, and notice how it changes the room.