By Christy Anyanwu
Olaseinde Olusola, founder of Seinde Signature Salon de Parfum, is an avid perfume collector. His love for collecting niche perfumes transformed the hobby into a thriving business venture.
Today, he has a section in his office where fragrance lovers are allowed to sample over 1,500 unique fragrances and perfumes from different brands before purchasing.
Speaking with Saturday Sun, this avid perfume collector-turned-business owner reveals how it all started. Also, he tells us how best to wear perfumes and the forthcoming perfume festival, taking place in Milan, Italy, in March.
Why did you venture into perfumes?
It was during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have always been a collector. I have been collecting perfumes for over 40 years. I don’t go to parties. I hardly socialise, but, if you talk about perfumes, I am there. I would travel abroad just to buy perfumes and return to Nigeria. During the pandemic era, I was jobless and decided to post my perfumes online. Before then, I did not post them because I felt people would think I was showing off. But during that period a lot of things were posted on the social media and even some were perfumes. That propelled me to post my perfumes online because, initially, I thought I was sick. My friends were buying gold and there I was buying perfumes.
One brilliant morning, I opened a page and posted my perfumes online. I noticed there were many people in Nigeria that had the same problem that I had.
People actually called to ask me: “Today is my birthday; can I come and spend time with you, then sample perfumes?” My daughter would cook and we would make merry and most Sundays many would come around to mark birthdays in my house. It kept going on and on.
I was moved to have an outlet and brought all the perfumes in the house so that people could come to this space to smell and spray the perfumes without coming to my house to intrude on my privacy.
The people that came to smell perfumes in my house also wanted to buy them. I never dreamt of selling perfumes. But the pressure to sell them was getting too much. I also got mails from people wanting to come to Nigeria just to smell perfumes and also to buy these perfumes. Two years ago, I was invited to Milan to talk about niche fragrances in my country. That was how the journey started.
When did this love for perfumes start, as a child, student or adult?
It started after secondary school. First, my father loves perfumes a lot. He’s always either burning incense or spraying perfumes. The house always smells of something.
A classmate travelled abroad after our secondary school – I finished in 1979. He brought me a bottle as a gift when he came back after two years, in 1981. Anywhere I entered, I noticed the respect accorded to me because of all that. Since then, I haven’t stopped. I have been buying perfumes. At a point, my wife was complaining and complaining because of my craving for perfumes. It came as a passion. It was never planned to be a business.
As a collector, what is the brief history of perfumes?
In those days, you were rich when you bathed thrice a year. Most people didn’t bathe at all; they used perfume to cover their body smell. And, in most cases, because they wore leather, which was the dead skin of animals, they used perfumes to mask the leather’s scent. So, perfume became something only the royals used.
Then, after some time, when the ladies started wearing those giant fibres with cossets that would tighten them, and they were fainting, they used lavender oil to resuscitate them. That is why the Yoruba call perfume ‘lofinda,’ instead of ‘lavender’ Perfume has existed since time immemorial, but it was only for the elite. After some time, when couples, husbands and wives, started to wear the same perfume, they decided to put gender to it. It was all a marketing gimmick because perfume does not really have any gender.
How can you tell if a perfume is good?
Most of the time, the more expensive it is, the better we think it is.
Some people make the mistake of thinking that the most expensive fragrance is the best, but it has to do with the ingredients; it has to do with the formulator. Some regular perfumes are merely chemicals. They can harm an individual’s health and the skin. The natural-based perfume ticks all the boxes. So, I stopped buying the regulars.
How does the human skin react to perfumes?
Most perfumes have days and act differently on different skins. We have different skin types; some have dry skin, and others have oily skin. Perfumes are also chemicals; when you put them on your skin, they may last longer. But there are some hacks you could use to make them last longer.
What are some of these hacks?
Applying a cream on your body before spraying your perfume would make the fragrance last longer. But like many Nigerians, when you spray perfume and rub it with your hand, you have reduced the performance of the perfume. You are generating heat, which would make it wear off fast.
Where are the best places to apply perfume on the body?
I would say the warmest parts of the body, better known as the pulse points. They include the neck, the wrist, behind the knee, the foot and the abdomen. These warm spots on your body emit extra body heat, which helps to diffuse a scent naturally.
When applying perfume on your pulse points, spritz or dab it (remember, don’t rub), and it will last all day.
Since most of your products are niche perfumes, what differentiates niche from regular brands?
Niche companies make only perfume; they don’t make bags or fashion gear. So, special attention is given to their ingredients, how they perform and everything else.
What differentiates niche from regular brands?
Regular or designer perfumes can be cheaper than niche perfumes. They are mass-produced and can be of lower quality.
These regular brands have deficient quality and are chemicals and mass-produced. So, every airport, every supermarket and everywhere in the world would have something to draw that traffic. We are the only store in Nigeria that sells niche perfumes.
Tell us about the forthcoming perfume festival in Milan…
The management of Seinde Signature Salon de Parfum would be taking two of its customers and a staff to the forthcoming magical niche fragrance-focused city of Milan, Italy, in March 2024 on an all-expenses-paid trip.
This gesture is tied to the company’s third anniversary, tagged “Scentiversary 3.”
Entries for the raffle began on July 1, 2023, and we had customers buying fragrances worth N500,000 to qualify for a raffle ticket. Two of the winners are customers and the third is the Abuja office (dedicated) staff.
The trip would afford the winners the chance to meet all top players in the industry.
They will get to smell perfumes and know more about niche fragrances, among other experiences and freebies, at the spectacular Esxence Perfumery Fair in Milan.