It came as a passion. It was never planned to be a business.
Olufemi Olusola
Seinde Signature, the Lagos perfumery, began in a collector’s room. People would visit founder Olufemi Olusola to try the perfumes he had gathered over the years. Those small get-togethers grew into a studio for experiencing scent and a perfume shop where visitors could take home a bottle they loved.
How the Stores Began
Scent had been part of Olusola’s life since childhood. His father burned incense at home and loved perfume. When a friend who had gone abroad later gave him a fragrance, he began collecting bottles himself. Rather than simply finishing one and buying the next, he developed a lifelong pleasure in keeping different scents close at hand and comparing them.
The turning point came when he shared his collection on social media during the pandemic. Perfume enthusiasts gathered at his home, sometimes welcomed with food prepared by his daughter. As the Sunday gatherings continued, he needed somewhere to enjoy perfume away from the family’s living space. A private collection gradually became an experience open to others.
The business began in 2020, initially offering a chance to explore scent at the Experience Studio. But visitors wanted to buy the perfumes they had just discovered and take them home. An experience alone could not fulfil that wish.
I saw the gap between what people wanted and what they could find.
Olufemi Olusola
To bridge that gap, the Salon de Parfum retail boutique opened in July 2021. A studio for trying a collection led to a shop that sourced, selected and supplied independent perfumes. Encounters with favourite new scents had prompted the next step in creating the business.
The Thinking Behind the Stores
The studio is centred on time to discover unfamiliar scents, rather than immediately deciding which bottle to buy.
At the studio they can test without the pressure to buy on the spot.
Olufemi Olusola
In its early days, the studio created an experience around a table where people could compare perfumes, ask questions and talk. Because it began with Olusola’s personal collection, a visit was never meant to end with admiring rare bottles from a distance. The chance to smell the fragrances was the reason to welcome people in.
That curiosity continues in the retail selection, which includes Clive Christian, Electimuss, Eris Parfums and Francesca Bianchi, among other creators. The founder’s private collection is separate from the shop’s stock, but the pleasure of comparing a wide range of scents connects the two.
In 2026, the arrival of Sarah Baker in Nigeria took perfume storytelling onto the stage. Olusola and his daughter and co-founder, Oreoluwa, organised a series of events to introduce the house. At a Lagos event venue, actors performed scripts associated with Jungle Jezebel, Velvet Vendetta and Va Va Vanilla. Performance and music offered another way to experience the characters and scenes behind the perfumes, inviting visitors into the creator’s world beyond a sampling session in a shop.
Stores to Visit
The Ground-Floor Salon de Parfum
The Lagos Oriental Hotel on Victoria Island houses both the ground-floor shop and the Experience Studio on the eleventh floor. For someone looking for a first bottle, the Salon de Parfum, accessible from the hotel lobby, is an easy place to drop in.
A consultation begins with questions about the perfumes you already wear. You try them first on blotters, then apply those that interest you to your skin and give them time. Leaving without making a purchase that day, seeing how the perfume wears in the Lagos heat and coming back later is entirely in keeping with the store’s approach.
The Eleventh-Floor Experience Studio
Upstairs in the same hotel, the studio is a place to get to know a perfume house in depth or seek advice on a particularly meaningful bottle. It offers time to focus on scent beyond a brief visit to the shop. Discovering perfume can feel like visiting a collector’s room, before carrying that encounter back into everyday life. The two spaces still reflect the sequence in which the business began.
