Nineteen Signature Fragrances

by: Serguey Borisov

Signature Fragrances is a new British perfume house that appeared last year. A distinctive feature of the fragrances, invented by friends Solomon and Yinka, is their ironic indiscretion. The motto “The most pungent fragrances in the world” emphasizes this, as well as the name of the brand, Signature Fragrances—it is assumed that all nineteen scents will certainly become for someone the unique, the one and only perfume for their entire life. The creators urge us to “be unique.” How is it that none of the niche brands before have appeared with this slogan on their flags?


The nineteen Signature Fragrances are divided into four collections, each representing the most popular perfume families: Floral, Fresh, Sweet, Oriental Woods. There are also indispensable Oud and two larger groupings (For Men and For Women), partially overlapping with the above collections, perhaps for those customers who do not know what kind of perfume they like, but are confident in their gender.

Signature Fragrances' creators left behind the alcohol-based crisis inventions—eau de toilette and eau de parfum—and offer only the best, most concentrated and long-lasting fragrance form: Extraits de Parfum. The fancy beautiful bottles of high-quality polished glass look like sparkling toys, with shapes resembling bottles made for hyper-expensive Attars and also being similar in size: tola (12 ml) and half Tola (6 ml). I am glad that the price is not-so-Arabian; on the contrary, it's very discreet—the most expensive fragrance in the line, Oud Bete Noir, will cost you 77 pounds per Tola. But unlike traditional oil-based attars, Signature Fragrances totally absorb into the skin and do not leave your skin oily.

I managed to try a couple of perfumes from the Signature Fragrances collection. I've noted their high tenacity: I smelt the fragrances upon the opening of a mailing envelope, so I thought for a tragic moment that the samples were broken by the ruthless stamp of postal employees. (Or maybe it's a marketing ploy—to drip one drop of perfume inside the envelope before mailing it?)

Sweet masculine Demure starts heading in a sunrise direction, by the clean and sparkling citrus notes of a sunny Italian morning. Citrus fruits with cast sugar and fresh green tea—smells pretty familiar; too many colognes smell like it. The difference is the distance of the smell—Demure has a perfume-like smooth quality. Gradually turning toward a green tea and fresh wood direction, Demure reminded me of a sassy offspring of Silver Mountain Water Creed (with a bit of Green Tea Elizabeth Arden). Finally, in the basenotes Demure makes a U-turn and goes the opposite direction—to sweet and warm musky-smoky sillage, the almost indistinguishable caramel sweetness of contemporary feminine gourmands.

As for the other perfume from the Signature Fragrances range which I was able to try, the feminine Deja Vu—it's a soft "Hello Kitty" perfume of tropical vacations. Sweet coconut oil with vanilla, with a spicy and hot amber chord hidden under it—a smell as reminiscent of the beach as the transparent suntan oil smell. If Deja Vu could be useful somewhere it is definitely in the office of a travel agency in Oslo or Murmansk, when outside it's a windy -20° Celsius. When some well-tanned girl offers a flight to a tropical paradise with an azure sea, palm trees and exotic fruits, she could waft Deja Vu at her clients. It would be more than appropriate and a good example of olfactory marketing. Inside a tanning salon or near a sunbed, all the fake tan temptation of coconut-vanilla paradise will suddenly turn into the artificial smell of sunless tan lotions, and all the unnaturalness of sweet coconut lactone, maltol, vanillin and coumarin will become so clearly visible. However, teen girls should like Deja Vuanyway. It has some good spoiled attitude of a really sweet person.

Signature Fragrances Demure	Signature Fragrances Deja Vu
Head notes: Bergamot, Lemon; Heart notes: Sandalwood, Rose; Base notes: Musk, Amber, Rosewood	Top notes: Caramel; Heart notes: Red amber, Coconut; Base notes: Amber, Vanilla