M.L. Ramnarain Perfumers

M.L. Ramnarain was established in 1970 by Harinarain Kapoor, whose own family had already spent generations in Kannauj's perfumery trade — an earlier family firm, Manau Lal Ramnarain, along with National Sandalwood Distillery, had been among the largest home-grown Indian perfumery houses, supplying sandalwood oil to fragrance companies abroad. Kapoor built M.L. Ramnarain on that foundation, and the firm is now run by a later generation of the same family from its head office on Mohalla Budhwari in Kannauj, India's centuries-old perfume-making town.

The house distills attars and rooh (essential oils) the traditional Kannauj way: deg-bhapka, a seal-clay copper-still method that reduces flower petals, wood, and spice into sandalwood-oil-based perfume with no alcohol and no electricity. Its catalogue runs through the classic Kannauj repertoire — Attar Gulab (rose), Rooh Kewra, Attar Motia, Shamama, Hina — alongside floral waters and raw perfumery materials, produced at factories in Hasain (Uttar Pradesh) and Kaluapalli (Odisha) in addition to the Kannauj base.

Most of the business is still domestic, but M.L. Ramnarain exports essential oils to Europe and attars to Gulf Cooperation Council markets, a trade route that mirrors how Kannauj's distillates have moved out of India for generations.