Dubai and Abu Dhabi reward a prepared visit and punish an improvised one. This guide covers the retail landscape as a beauty brand meets it: which malls and department stores carry what, where fragrance really sells, how the market expects you to behave on a shop floor, and the practical business of getting between them. Written around Beautyworld Middle East, and useful for any trip to the Gulf.
Market Guides
Dubai & Abu Dhabi Travel Guide.
The Gulf's beauty retail on the ground: the malls, the department stores, the fragrance specialists, and how a brand should spend a week there.
For brands exhibiting at Beautyworld Middle East, or scoping the Gulf for the first time.
- Edition
- 2025
- Method
- Researched in person
- Supply
- On request, direct from ILBC
Look inside
Read the opening pages.
Straight from the report itself. Tap the pages to read them as a spread.
What's inside
The ground it covers.
- 01
How to read the retail landscape
Why sampling competitors is expected here, and what the counters tell you.
- 02
Luxury department stores and mall boutiques
The Dubai Mall, Mall of the Emirates, Galeries Lafayette, Harvey Nichols.
- 03
Fragrance specialists and mass market
The Perfume Souk, the drugstores, and where volume actually moves.
- 04
Navigation, etiquette and the VAT refund
Getting around, how to behave in store, and how to claim the tax back.
Walk it once, knowing where to go.
A market rewards whoever arrives prepared. Which doors matter, what each one ranges, where the buyers actually are, and what the visit costs in time. These are the guides Valérie hands a founder before the trip.
- Walked, not researched
Every store on the map has been visited: what it ranges, who it serves, and whether it is worth your morning.
- Ordered for a real visit
Grouped by area and walking distance, so a day on the ground covers ground instead of crossing the city twice.
- Written for a beauty brand
Not a tourist guide. Department store, chain, pharmacy or independent, and what each one means for where a brand belongs.
- Hers, not compiled
Prepared by Valérie Kaminov from her own market visits, and shared with the brands she works with.
"Valérie has guided us towards opportunities we would never have identified alone, while protecting the integrity and positioning of our brand."
Nina Potamianou · Tecnoskin-Derma Group, Greece
- 01 · Send the requestA minute, at most. No payment details.
- 02 · A personal replyDirect from ILBC, with the current edition of the guide.
- 03 · Yours to takeThe full guide, straight to your inbox.
Also in this library 
Paris Beauty Retail Stores Tour Paris beauty retail, mapped: twenty-one stores across three areas, with addresses, metro stops and what each one is actually for. 
Tokyo Official Guide Tokyo's beauty retail district by district: the luxury department stores, the concept stores driving the market, and how to cover them in a day. The whole Market Guides library
Paris Beauty Retail Stores Tour Paris beauty retail, mapped: twenty-one stores across three areas, with addresses, metro stops and what each one is actually for. Tokyo Official Guide Tokyo's beauty retail district by district: the luxury department stores, the concept stores driving the market, and how to cover them in a day.