Fragrance house

Chabrawichi

Chabrawichi began in Cairo in the early 1920s, when Hamza al-Chabrawichi opened a perfume shop in the Al-Hussein area and sold fragrances he mixed himself. The founder’s name refers to Chabrawich, a village in Egypt’s Dakahlia region. In 1967, the Egyptian state merged Chabrawichi with the public-sector Kesma cosmetics and perfumes company, creating Kesma and Chabrawichi. Its clearest fragrance legacy is Cologne 555, the best-known line in the Three Fives range, associated with King Farouk and Gamal Abdel Nasser. During Egypt’s 2020 coronavirus crisis, 555 experienced a public revival as people sought it both as an alcohol-based disinfectant and as a cologne.