PROLOGUE
It all began with the jar of Stella Pomade her mum bought her when she was in secondary school years ago in the climax of the harmattan season. Afterwards the desire to own her own perfume line was born. Today that desire has blossomed into a thriving business. Belinda Brown, though not a celebrity, has built from scratch, her own perfume brand known as Blessings, which is sold in one of the most exclusive perfume shops in the world, the Roja Dove Heute Parfumerie, at Harrods Department Store, London, alongside reputable brands like Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Channel, Sergue Lutens, Salvatore Ferragamo and Clive Christian.
We were seated at Bearhugs, Ikeja City Mall, that rainy afternoon and I was almost shivering from the cold. Belinda was dressed in an indigo lace short gown which terminates just above her knees and decorated with stones. Around her neck was a Cartier bronze necklace, a 20th wedding anniversary gift from her Scottish husband.
How it all started
“I was blessed as a child growing up. I was exposed to the exotic and unusual fragrances that were all around me. I had just returned from school on vacation one harmmattan season and the weather was so rough and my mum bought me Stella Pomade. I used it and it smelt very nice.
“I used it liberally from my head to my toes because I loved the fragrance so much. Even at that young age, I thought the fragrance divine and all my friends would comment on how lucky I was because in those days, it was rare for anyone to purchase perfume. My experience with Stella Pomade made me begin to dream of having my own fragrance line.”
That dream grew into a vision which became intense years after she got married and relocated to the UK. Belinda says she became restless and bored and so she shared her dream with a friend, Shedida, who did stuff for British celebrities and that culminated in her meeting internationally renowned perfumer, Roja Dove a.k.a Professeur de Parfums, the world’s most quoted fragrance expert and founder of Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie at Harrods, London.
Roja Dove agreed to make a perfume for Belinda Brown, a woman who is not a celebrity or even famous. That culminated in the launching of her perfume range christened Blessings in 2010.
Made of seductive and sensual jasmine combined with delicate may rose from the south of France, crowned with citrus notes of bergamot, lemon and mandarin, and nested in the base of tonka bean, vanilla and warm cedar, her perfume range has become a global brand. As a testament to her hard work, she was endorsed by one of Nigeria’s biggest carriers, Arik. Her perfumes are available on the duty free platform of the airline. Ever since, Belinda has continued to grow from strength to strength.
The success story
Beaming with smiles, Belinda shares her success story, saying “When I first toyed with the idea of creating a perfume, I read about the woman with the jar of alabaster oil in the Bible. It seemed my vision was indeed blessed because that woman anointed Christ our saviour and prepared him for death and so I decided to christen my perfume Blessings.
“My dear friend Shedida who did stuff for a lot of British celebrities introduced me to Roja Dove, the renowned perfumer and from the moment we met, we clicked and he guided me through each stage giving me the confidence to continue. We launched it on September 2 2010 and today we have four fragrances in the Belinda Brown range. Although it’s a luxury brand, anyone can use it.”
Today her brand has won a couple of awards and sits among some of the most exotic and expensive perfumes in the world. But once upon a time, it was tough as nails as nobody would discuss with her because she was not known. But thanks to her close pal, Shedida, who introduced her to Roja Dove.
“Shedida and I discussed it over lunch and she thought I was just crazy and actually a lot of people thought I was the joke of the year. But she offered to do all she could for me. Shedida was doing stuff for all the big celebrities in the UK.
“Shedida phoned me later and said ‘guess what, I just bumped into Roja Dove and he’s the biggest name in perfumes. He is standing right here in front of me and I was speechless!
“Now Roja Dove is one of the biggest names when you talk perfumes and I was like, you must be joking! But she said she wasn’t. In fact, she said I should speak to Roja Dove and handed over the phone to him to speak with him but I was star struck! I couldn’t believe I was talking to the legendary Roja Dove.
“I finally spoke to him a couple of weeks later after my vacation in Nigeria. I told him my dream , so we sat down and he told me the process and we started working.”
And so Belinda began the quest for her dream, Blessings.
“I travelled to France, to the city of Grass, not too far from Nice. I studied how perfumes were made there. It was quite challenging. Nobody would talk to me because I was not a celebrity. From there I traveled to Oman to get frankincense and that was how I started, smelling over a thousand fragrances before Roja and I broke it down to 500 and then 50, and finally we trimmed it down to the final four which make up the range of my perfumes named Blessing Purple.”
Much ado about a bottle
What’s in a bottle you might say? Ask Belinda. After the fragrance had been identified, because she is a perfectionist. Belinda wanted a unique bottle that would stand out and thus another journey began.
“Choosing the right bottle was another challenge. I never thought it would be that tough. There are perfumes and there are perfumes; I wanted something that people will buy and buy again. I wanted a bottle that I had not seen; something unique.
Belinda says she visited antique shops among a dozen other places all just to get the right bottle. Eventually, she found what she was looking for in guess where, the Czech Republic.
“I finally found a bottle from the 1920s after I flew all the way to the Czech Republic. The bottles were all handmade and were just breathtaking! Because I wanted to project something African, I got them to make the lid after the shape of the African continent. It was a crystal bottle with lovely packaging. It took me about seven years, and then 21 months after we knew what we were going for. Now we were set to hit the market at last.”
Eureka!
On the day of the launch, September 2, 2010, Belinda says she never dreamed she could sell any because nobody knew who Belinda Brown was but she was in for a shocker!
Recalling her Eureka moment, Belinda says: “On the day of the launch I wasn’t expecting much because nobody knew who Belinda Brown was and what she had to offer but I was wrong! The media got wind of what was going on and swooped on the show because of Roja Dove.
“It was amazing. I kept saying somebody pinch me; wake me up from this dream. And then the phone calls started coming. And before I knew it, Harrods was calling that they had exhausted my first 50 perfumes and they had 17 names on the waiting list. I was on holiday in Spain playing golf that weekend so I had to come back to start production.
“I started with 50 bottles because it was so expensive at over £600. And that was because of the materials I chose which were out of this world. Like the jasmine was the early morning from Grass, France, which you can only pick easily in the morning. I was scared nobody would buy but it sold out!
The Belinda Brown range
“I started getting emails and calls from people complaining that they could not afford the perfume at that price.Then I sat down with Roja and asked him, what do we do? I needed to reach out to these people and at the same time maintain my standards.
“That was how we created Blessing EDP which sells for £75. We launched it and Arik Airlines saw my story in the papers and sent for me; the first Nigerian perfumer in the UK. Arik was very proud of me so they endorsed me. For the past three years I have been on their duty free platform.”
“It’s been growing very well. It’s sold in Saudi Arabia, US and Europe and now in Nigeria. It’s been an amazing journey especially going by the fact that I am not a celebrity. I have shattered the myth that you must be a celebrity or whatever to do what I am doing. Thanks to Shedida and Roja Dove. It has always been my dream to have my own perfume line but I thought it was only celebrities that could sell perfumes. I was wrong.”
As a testament to the quality of her perfume range, two years ago, her perfume came 5th in the New York Times Perfume Review.
Beyond perfumes
Having made a name for herself as a successful perfumer, what’s the next level for Belinda Brown?
“We have just launched our crocodile bags and guess what; they are all hand-crafted. We launched them in the UK, January this year. The response has been incredible and we are hoping to hit the Nigerian market soon.”
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