About us

ABOUT DARAKE

Some brands are built to sell; DA RAKE was built to mean something.

Founded by Prashast Shah and Rahul Arora, DA RAKE began with a simple belief: every Indian deserves a world-class fragrance at an honest price. We came from different cities, different careers, and different paths in life, but we shared the same dream: to build something real, meaningful, honest, and worthy of trust.

Both of us are obsessed with perfumes and are big-time collectors. So, obviously, we both have owned and tried multiple fragrances of all sorts. As consumers, we saw a clear gap. Premium fragrance often felt out of reach, and even when people paid more, the experience didn’t always match the promise.

We knew that had to change.

So we travelled across India in search of the right ingredients, the right knowledge, and the right partners. Because nothing premium can come out of ordinary ingredients, not “just the internet research.” When we couldn’t find the standard we wanted, we chose to create it ourselves! Sourcing right from the heart of the fragrance world, France! We’ve used fragrance oils from France to build the best and longest-lasting formulas and have built every bottle with care, precision, and a commitment to quality.

But DA RAKE is more than just a fragrance brand; it is a story of loyalty!

The name DA RAKE comes from Drake, Prashast’s cat, who has been his companion through long nights, difficult decisions, and the journey of building something from the ground up. Drake became a reminder that true loyalty doesn’t need to be loud. It just needs to be constant, without any conditions, full of love and empathy regardless of what may come through.

That same belief shapes everything we do.

At DA RAKE, we don’t see customers as transactions. We see them as relationships built on honesty, consistency, and respect.

DA RAKE is our promise to India: premium should feel personal, accessible, and real.

And this is only the beginning!

THE NAME

People ask us what DA RAKE means. The honest answer is that the name holds a private meaning for the two of us, and we have chosen to keep that within the founding team. What we will share is that the name was never borrowed, licensed, or inspired by another brand. It is ours entirely, the way every fragrance in our collection is an original composition.

LUXEZ speaks to the French-grade luxury of what goes into every bottle we produce. Not luxury as a label. Luxury as a material fact, verifiable in the concentration, the sourcing, and the hours the fragrance stays with you.

WHAT GOES INTO EVERY BOTTLE

Every DA RAKE fragrance is classified as Extrait de Parfum, the highest concentration tier available in commercial perfumery worldwide. Our formulations contain 25% French-imported perfume oil, sourced from established fragrance houses in Grasse. In the global hierarchy of fragrance grades, Extrait de Parfum sits above Eau de Parfum, above Eau de Toilette, and above Eau de Cologne. It is the concentration that luxury houses reserve for their most premium expressions, the ones that typically retail at three to five times the price of their standard offerings.

The reason this concentration matters to you as the wearer is that it directly governs how the fragrance performs on your skin. At 25%, every layer of the note pyramid, the opening, the heart, and the base, has the density to express itself fully over time. The fragrance does not peak in the first hour and disappear by the third. It develops, evolves, and remains present for 10 to 12 hours because the concentration gives each note the structural weight to persist.

The alcohol base in every DA RAKE bottle is D-NAT SDB40 pharmaceutical-grade denatured alcohol. This is the same standard used in premium cosmetic and medical applications, manufactured to be impurity-free, completely odourless, and chemically neutral. It does not alter the fragrance oils it carries, does not leave a harsh chemical residue on the skin, and evaporates cleanly to allow the perfume to develop faithfully. Industrial-grade ethanol, which is the standard at our price point in the Indian market, does not meet any of these specifications. We chose to use pharmaceutical-grade because the difference shows up in every spray, even if it never shows up on the label.

Our formulations carry IFRA certification, the international standard for fragrance safety compliance, and GS1 certification for product authenticity and supply chain traceability. These certifications confirm that every bottle we sell has been validated against global benchmarks, from formulation safety through to provenance.

THE FOUR ORIGINALS

Ascot Oud
Our most commanding composition, built around natural oud, guaiac wood, and vanilla in the opening, moving into a heart of caramel and exotic fruits, and settling into a base of deep oud and almond that carries through the evening and into the following morning. We developed Ascot Oud as our hero fragrance for formal Indian occasions: weddings, festive celebrations, milestone evenings where the scent you wear should carry authority and warmth in equal proportion, and stay with everyone who encounters it long after you have left the room.

Adrenaline Bleu
A clean, aquatic composition that opens with the sharp freshness of bergamot and pink pepper while seaweed adds a cool, coastal undertone from the first spray. The heart is structured around sage and amber musk, giving the fragrance a dry, grounded warmth beneath the freshness. Cedar, aquatic accords, and calone in the base keep the entire composition persistent and restrained, maintaining clarity from morning through a full working day or outdoor event. We built Adrenaline Bleu for movement, for India's climate, for days that start early and demand a fragrance that keeps pace.

Classio Vibes
The most versatile composition in our collection, opening with neroli, bergamot, and lemongrass for an immediate impression of clean, sunlit freshness that reads as approachable from the first moment. Geranium, melon, and tuberose in the heart add just enough floral character to keep the scent interesting without ever becoming heavy or attention-seeking. Juniper, freesia, and tonka bean in the base round everything into a soft, warm finish that carries through the day. Classio Vibes is our most gender-fluid fragrance and the one our repeat buyers tell us they reach for every morning without thinking about it.

Mirage Velvet
Our most intimate composition, centred on Grasse rose and orris butter in the opening, which gives the first impression a sense of soft, refined warmth. Golden champaca and violet leaf in the heart build a floral depth that feels earthy and grounded rather than sweet. Gardenia and raspberry in the base resolve into a powdery, close finish that stays near the skin rather than projecting outward. We designed Mirage Velvet for evenings that matter: for proximity, for the kind of occasions where the fragrance you wear becomes part of how the moment is remembered.

THE PRICE AND WHY IT WORKS

A 100ml bottle of DA RAKE Extrait de Parfum is Rs. 1,499. The Discovery Set, which includes all four fragrances in trial format at full Extrait concentration, is Rs. 499. The All In One Gift Set, with four 15ml bottles, is Rs. 999.

We are able to offer Extrait de Parfum with French-imported oils at these prices because DA RAKE is a direct-to-consumer brand. We sell through our own website at darakeluxez.com, through Amazon India, and through Flipkart. We do not pay for retail shelf space in department stores. We do not fund celebrity endorsement campaigns. We do not pass the product through layers of distributor margins before it reaches the person who will actually wear it.

The overhead savings of a D2C model go directly into formulation quality. That is the trade we made when we started this brand. We would rather invest in what goes inside the bottle, the concentration, the oil quality, the alcohol grade, and let the product justify the price through performance rather than through marketing spend.

We did not build DA RAKE to be the cheapest fragrance option available to the Indian consumer. We built it to be the most honest value in the Indian luxury fragrance category: a product where what you pay for is the liquid inside the bottle, not the infrastructure around it.

WHERE WE ARE

We are Prashast Shah and Rahul Arora. We founded DA RAKE in Delhi in 2025 with four Extrait de Parfum fragrances, a Discovery Set, and a belief that the Indian fragrance consumer has been underserved by an industry that spends more on packaging and endorsements than on what actually goes into the bottle.

Every formulation in our collection was developed from scratch in Grasse by a perfumer with decades of experience working with the world's leading luxury houses. Every bottle is assembled in India. Every ingredient is traceable, certified, and verifiable. We are a young brand, less than two years old, but the product we sell is not young in quality. It was built to outperform fragrances that cost five to ten times our price, and we are confident enough in that claim to let the product prove it.

If you have not experienced DA RAKE yet, the Discovery Set is where we ask you to start. Four original fragrances, each at full 25% Extrait de Parfum concentration, each made with French-imported perfume oils, delivered to your door for Rs. 499. Wear them. Time them. Compare them against anything else you own.

That is the only test that matters to us.

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