Catherine Omai: Power of fragrance, beyond creating perfumes

Catherine Tope Omai is the first Nigerian and African perfumer to have her brand on the international market scene. Not quite long ago, the award winning perfumer/scent creator unveiled her time of her latest range of fragrances, Contagious. In this interview with IFEOMA ONONYE, she sees the fragrance industry as another gold-mine sector the Nigerian government yet to explore

As a respected perfumer, what is smell to you?
Fragrance is a part of you. It defines your person in a way that nothing else in the world does. Fragrance gives you an ability to express who you truly are. If you create a fragrance, like a niche perfume, like I do, there are certain elements of that fragrance that can tell a story about you. The elements will tell stories about either your personality or a memory you have as a child or something that ignites certain kind of feelings. There is nobody that will have that emotions beside you.
Fragrance is an invisible expression of your persona. You can smell certain kind of fragrance and it reminds you of someone, or you remember an experience or remember a time in your life. When you are choosing fragrances , that thing only relates to you and nobody else. Music does the same thing fragrances does. When you hear certain music, you remember a time in your life. With fragrance, you carry your memories with you. It’s your person. Whenever you enter a place, people know you with that fragrance. They remember you when they perceive it.

Was there a time in your life you knew you would end up becoming a perfumer?
No! I didn’t think of fragrances until I was much older. I came into fragrances by chance. In the sense that I was trying to change something that is narrative for plussize people. I have always been a plussize girl and there is always that narrative in my primary school days, early secondary school days, that when someone is big, when they sweat, they smell. So, it has always been in my subconsciousness to be intentional about how I am perceived. But my becoming a perfumer wasn’t borne out of a passion for the love of fragrances. It was more of me securing myself and being in a safe place. I have never really been into fashion or been crazy about designers. I like them, yes! I buy them but I am not label orientated. When my mates were concerned about clothes and latest shoes, I was more concerned about how I smell.

You were telling a story earlier about your high school days. Was that when your fragrance journey started?
I have always been plus size and big. In primary and second school, there has always been this thing about big people smelling in certain ways. So, in my subconsciousness, I was very determined not to fall into that category. So, I would go to my dad’s table as he had a collection of perfumes and my mum too. So, I’ll take a small bottle and take it to school to use. I was not allowed to spray perfume in the house. One day, I got into trouble with the CRK teacher, who said I was trying to entice boys with perfume. They ceased the small bottle and said I should not be wearing perfumes again. But it has always been in my subconscious just to constantly smell good because I didn’t want that narrative to be in my narrative. I was very playful and rough and the tendency of that happening was slightly high. So, when I moved to the UK to study, my own thing was to always smell nice. As a student, my money was limited. I’ll still try to buy some perfumes and then use them. It got to a stage where I started getting bored of people telling me the perfumes I wore. I will then buy three or four different perfumes and layer them. It got to a point where it was genuinely something I could no longer afford. So, one day in my hostel, I googled ‘how to get a unique fragrance for cheap’. Then all these studios where you can create your own fragrance popped up. So, I went to a studio in Central London. Then, it was 125 Pounds for a 50ml bottle. I got in there and they talked me through the process of creating your own fragrance and the DNA. I was happy. After a few months, I went back there and a lady there told me I seem to be very interested in the materials and love fragrances. She advised me to go to their company in Paris as there were more materials there and get the experience. When I went there, I fell in love with the world of perfumery. My curiosity became bigger and I kept going back until a point when I decided I needed to study this. Even then, I wasn’t looking to do it as a business. It is something I was passionate about. I was doing my Masters in Oil and Gas Management, Renewable Energy with the hope of coming back to Nigeria to change the way things are done. But when I came back to Nigeria, I didn’t get a job. For one year, I was still looking for work in the oil and gas sector. There was nothing. I later got a job as a receptionist. Today, it’s a different story. I went back to what I have always loved- perfumes.
I started this journey about 14 years ago. When I started fragrances, I came back from the UK, thinking I could come and sell my brand to people and say I am a Nigerian with a UK experience but I met a lot of resistance. A lot of people were asking why they should buy my perfumes when there are other known brands. Also, I’m not a celebrity or social media influencer. So, I decided that instead of me trying to sell fragrances to people, what I needed to do was to give people the experience to create their own. Which was why we started the business and the name of the brand at the beginning was Mystiquee Bespoke Perfumery. The reason we chose this name was because I wanted a sense of mystery around people who would wear the perfume because one thing I wasn’t particularly happy about was because people could predict the perfume I wore. The whole concept for me was having something unique for yourself and having a sense of mystery behind it. Last month, we launched our 10th year anniversary of the store opening. So, it took me four years of selling my business and my brand and doing door-to-door, going from one person to the other and one recommendation to another. I would carry my fragrance case from Surulere to Apapa and from Apapa to the Island. I was just moving around doing the hard work and going from door-to-door to sell what I was doing. Although some people weren’t very receptive, I still had some encouragement from some people.

What is your fashion and style like?
My fashion is all about comfort. I don’t like exposing my skin. Obviously, when I was younger, I did the flashy kind of fashion but when you are getting older, becoming your own woman, and not influenced by peer pressure, my fashion sense changed to comfort. I like simple and conservative style. I believe in people experiencing my brand before meeting me.

Do you think there is niche perfume market in Nigeria?
Yes, there is but the people that understand niche perfumes are people that have been exposed to it out of Nigeria. Its not 100 per cent here. If they don’t have a knowledge of what niche perfume is, they don’t understand it. An average Nigerian is all about does it smells nice. They care about following what is trending in fragrances. There is small percentage of people, who will say ‘I cannot be caught dead wearing what everyone is wearing’ and that is where the niche comes in. There are the kind of people that say, ‘I don’t care how much it costs , I just want to look different. I don’t care how much it costs, I want my perfume to be different.’ There are people like that but its a small percentage and with what the economy is so right now, the buying power of people has changed.

Is there a misconception about niche perfumes?
I am not aware about that. I think people are not sure what they educate people about when it comes to niche perfumes.
Niche perfume is an independently created fragrance, for a selected few people or perfume artistry. The people that understand the composition, formula, DNA of fragrances, not oh, this smells nice, I am just going to wear it. It’s not mass produced. It can be commercial. There has been a controversy in the international world, if niche perfumes should be commercial. Some niche perfume brands obviously want to sell more. So, they produce more. Not mass producing but producing enough to make an impact in the perfume industry.
One of our clients commented that the fragrance changes its smell after a while. Yes, fragrance is supposed to change as you wear it through the day. It’s supposed to develop. The way it starts is not the way it will finish. It is taking you on a journey. That is what a genuine created fragrance should do for you. Your body scent will also interact with the fragrance. It will still have the same feel but the fragrance will interact with the natural scent that comes from your body. For example, if you are someone that eats garlic a lot, it will come through. The end not of the fragrance on the body of someone who eats garlic a lot will differ from another person, because the skin composition will interact with the fragrance.

How did you get into the United Kingdom Market with your fragrance?
I went to an exhibition in Italy and I was the first and only African perfumer to exhibit. So, because of the type of fragrance I created, the materials I used to create the fragrance, the quality of the fragrance, the packaging and story behind it, there was a buzz around the brand that attracted different international buyers.

At what point did you decide to take your brands to other markets outside Nigeria?
After doing this for about 10 years, I felt I needed to spread my wings beyond the Nigerian market. The reason why I wanted to do that is that when you go to France, Italy and other countries that are into fragrances, there is a history with them being perfumers. The House of Creed has been there for about 100 years. These are people that know and appreciate Fragrance materials and are able to know construction of fragrance creation. For me, if I’m not able to work within that environment and get thumbs up, I didn’t feel I have gotten it right. In the perfume industry, there is no accreditation or certification to make you a master perfumer. What makes you a master perfumer is the skill you bring into your creation and the years of experience you have that people have experienced. So, as a perfumer, you would create for a certain brand, you would have your own brands as well and create for people. So, the work you put out and the way you create will determine the way the industry would perceive you. So, I felt I needed to get into that space. In Nigeria, I felt I had reached the peak.
In Nigeria, I am the pioneer of perfume creator. There was nobody to challenge me and it was getting a bit boring for me. I wanted to just test myself by entering the international market, speak to perfumers and know what they say. I’m not going into this market as a commercial fragrance person. It is a niche market. The fragrance market is extremely competitive and I didn’t want to put out a fragrance that anyone would perceive and say they have smelt that before or that has smelt like a certain brand. This is what you get in the commercial field. I had to create that independence as the first West African perfumer to exhibit at Pitti Fragranze in Italy. This is done every year. I exhibited in 2019 and it was so mind-blowing- the reception I got. I was the only black person at that exhibition in 2019, just before COVID and I’m still the only black person since then. They do it every year. So, COVID happened and two years straight, there was no exhibition. Everybody from around the world comes to that exhibition. It’s like New York fashion week for fragrances. Everyone comes there; from journalists, to buyers, store owners and this was how we got into certain countries. We are in Australia, France, Saudi, Dubai, the United States and Germany. Entering the US market is a very big deal. I did not even lobby for it. I wasn’t even looking to go into the U.S market. They contacted me based on the reviews they have been hearing about my business. This was in 2021. It took about a year plus to conclude it. This happened after my exhibition. So, the wave and noise within the fragrance industry of my work was what attracted that.

Do you make the perfumes here in Nigeria or abroad?
The collection is made in the United Kingdom because it has to go through an International Fragrance Association, IFRA process. For me to be able to sell in the United Kingdom, there is an accrediting body that have to inspect it. They are like the Nigerian NAFDAC but for fragrance. They have to certify that the things you use are genuine, authentic; they can’t cause skin cancer. They have to evaluate that your fragrance is saleable and that you followed the fragrance etiquette.

What is your biggest dream for the brand?
I want to be global. I want global domination. Being sold in 7 countries is not enough. We have not yet entered the Asian Market.

When you created your first perfume, what was your intention?
I created my first perfume ever because I was trying to save money. I was spending a lot of money on fragrance. So, when I went into the studio to create, I wanted to make something unique for myself. I felt self accomplished. I was very happy. I made the perfume just for me. It was something I felt connected to because the materials and the notes that I used for that very first fragrance are things that I remember from the ones I used to buy off the shelve. I just wanted to smell different. It was what opened up my curiosity about different materials used in making fragrances, how they work together, how to blend them. My fragrance brand started off as bespoke. You come in and create your own fragrance and go. The business was Mystic perfumery. The whole essence is that you have a sense of mystery, nobody knows what you are wearing. Nobody knows where you got it. So, you come in, you create, we personalise your name on the bottle. That was what I was doing for 10 years before I went into fragrance retail and now launching these three fragrances. So my first creation of perfume was for me but my first perfume creation for a client was a mind blowing experience because it was more like I interpreted what the client wanted and I delivered. The person was happy with it. It was like going into the person’s mind and getting exactly what they are thinking. I once told someone that each creation of perfume for someone, went beyond creating a perfume because I had to get to know you. It becomes more of a personal experience. I looked forward more into the connection I will make with people. Some come here and break down talking about their marriage. Some people will come to my shop and break down because they remembered their late mom because of a particular smell. Some will smell something and remember a happy place. The power of fragrance goes beyond what you are creating. It’s the experience you give people.

Is it true that to make a perfume, some unexpected ingredients can be fine tuned and used? Is there some of our African spices that can be used?
The Contagious Green, has a little of our Efirin (scent leave or the African Basil leaf) in it. Scent leave is the heart of the fragrance. I have always said that I want to use Efirin to create a perfume. The Contagious Green, which happens to be our best-seller has Scent Leave as part of it. It’s a fragrance that everybody loves the most.
Nigeria has so many natural resources that can be used to create perfumes but we do not have the infrastructure. We don’t have the infrastructure to create perfumes in Nigeria. I don’t think the government even recognises the fragrance industry as an industry independent from beauty. Those are the challenges we face trying to build a fragrance hub. We have so many plants that we can be extracted from and have an entire library of fragrance oils.
Efirin is called African Basil leaf and the international world does not have it. I using Efirin in my perfume. I had to extract and go and recreate it in a lab because I cannot export it.

What other challenges have you encountered growing as a perfumer?
The journey since the beginning has been challenging. There are a lot of challenges with bringing things into Nigeria. There were no raw materials in Nigeria then to create fragrances. However, there is now a huge market for buying oil and other raw materials. Because then, the quality available wasn’t the kind of quality I could use.
I have gone to a School of Perfumery in France and I knew the quality and what fragrances should smell like. There was a time I ran out of sandalwood and I decided to contact a local vendor and when they brought the sandalwood, it didn’t smell anything like what sandalwood should smell. I just knew that buying from the Nigerian market wasn’t an option for my brand. I was very intentional about the kind of materials I would use and my packaging. It was important for us to do things the right way and because I had the knowledge of how to do it, I wanted to do it well. The challenges of bringing things; NAFDAC, Customs and the rest were challenging. Sometimes, Customs would cease the materials and we would pay extra to get them back. As much as Nigeria was very challenging, it helped me in a way that I was able to restructure my knowledge about perfume creation.