27 June 2026

Top Note, Heart Note, Base Note, Signature

Our loyalty tiers borrow their names from the same place a fragrance does, and the connection isn't an accident.

Most loyalty programmes are named like a credit card tier: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. Fine, functional, and forgotten the moment you close the tab.

If you read the piece on fragrance structure a few weeks back, you'll recognise what we did instead: we borrowed the same three-note idea and added one tier on top.

The four tiers

How you move through them

Every rand you spend earns a note. No separate app, no points that mysteriously convert at an unfavourable rate — spend R300, get 300 notes. Same maths, every time.

"Lifetime" is the important word. Tiers are based on everything you've ever earned, not your current balance, so spending your notes on a voucher doesn't knock you back down a level. You can be sitting in Signature with a balance of zero and still be in Signature.

Why fragrance language, not just numbers

A scent moves from something bright and unfamiliar, to something that's settled in, to whatever's still there once everything lighter has faded. A relationship with a brand tends to move the same way, just slower. By the time someone's earned their way to Signature, "top-tier customer" undersells it — it's someone whose taste we've actually started to know. Felt like the right word for it.

What the notes are actually for

Notes redeem for a handful of special physical products we set aside specifically for this. Nothing expires on a countdown, and every note earned or spent shows up on your account, so the balance is never a mystery.

We built it this way because most loyalty programmes end up rewarding the business more than the customer. We wanted ours to lean the other way: reward people for coming back, and be straightforward about how.

More from the journal

Flipping the ReedsHow often to turn them, and why doing it constantly is the fastest way to waste a bottle. Eight Scents, Two FamiliesThe range doubled without doubling. How the two halves relate, and how to pick across them. On Women's Day9 August marks the 1956 march to the Union Buildings. A note on what the day actually commemorates. Where to Put a DiffuserPlacement does more for a diffuser than anything else you can control.