Emerging from a personal life experience as a plus size young school girl with a high level of body sweat and a need to retain a fresh and alluring fragrance regardless, Catherine Tope Omai, a Nigerian award winning perfumer/scent creator, has honed a profound skill for creating niche perfumes for several years across the globe.
Omai, who has created three beautiful signature variants of perfume ranges: Catherine Omai ‘Contagious Gold’, ‘Contagious Rose’ & ‘Contagious Green’ stocked in some of the world’s most iconic shopping malls, like Saks Fifth Avenue, USA, Royal Oud Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sayhar Perfumes Paris, France, etc, and exclusively at Seinde Signature Salon de Parfum stores in Nigeria, said: “There has always been this thing about big people smelling in certain ways. So, in my subconscious, I was determined not to fall into that category.”
She would go to her dad’s table as he had a collection of perfumes and her mum’s too and take a small bottle to use in school. However, one day, she got into trouble with one of her teachers who said she was trying to entice boys with perfume. “They seized the small bottle and said I should no longer wear perfumes to school too. I didn’t like it as smelling nice was a big deal to me. So, when I moved to the UK to study in the university, I knew I had the freedom to get as many perfumes as I wanted.
“Over time, that lifestyle became too expensive for her to afford, so one day, I goggled ‘how to get a unique fragrance cheap’. Then all these studios where you could create your own fragrance popped up. So I went to a studio in Central London where I was charged 125 pounds to create 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 she noticed 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.”
Her curiosity became bigger and she kept going back until a point when she decided to study this. Even then, she wasn’t looking to do it as a business. She continued: “Initially the brand name was Mystique Bespoke Perfumery as I wanted a sense of mystery around people who would wear the perfume as opposed to people being able to predict the perfume you’re wearing. 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. Although some people weren’t very receptive, I still had some encouragement from some people but today Catherine Omai is a global niche perfume brand.”
On some of the challenges encountered at the initial stage in the Nigeria market Omai said: “There were no raw materials in Nigeria then to create fragrances. However, now there is a huge market for buying oil and other raw materials.
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. It was also important to do things the right way.”