Sean Rocha

Chabrawichi 555 cologne: Cairo, Egypt, 1998

Two versions of the 555 cologne from Chabrawichi, an Egyptian perfume manufacturer, that I purchased at a store in downtown Cairo, though they are commonly available across Egypt.  The scent could be described kindly as floral with perhaps a note of lemon and in enclosed spaces the cologne has a tendency to linger in the air almost in perpetuity.  The cross of apparent zeroes on the label are the Arabic numeral five and the price — listed as P. 750 on one and P.T. 725 on the other — is denominated in piastres, which persistent inflation and the consequent devaluation of the Egyptian currency have rendered archaic.  The standard denomination now is the Egyptian pound, which represents 100 piastres; at the time of purchase, the bottles cost approximately $2.25 each.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at 6:54 pm. It is filed under Found Object and tagged with Cairo, Egypt, fashion, Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.