The first thing you notice is the name. Not the bottle, not the listed notes. The name. “Senator, I’m Singaporean”. It arrives with the same unhurried, confident energy as the moment that inspired it, and with a twinkle in the eye of whoever chose it. I immediately wanted to try the fragrance to see if the notes stood up to the name, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
What it does is delightful. The calamansi opens sharp and zingy, and after a surprisingly long time, softens into something floral and quietly complex. The fragrance settles into a dry-down that’s smooth, urban, and surprisingly easy to wear. This is a fragrance with something to say, but it says it in a way that most people, whether they get the reference or not, will want to keep smelling. I spoke to Joshua Foong, Epilogue’s co-founder, to get his inspiration for the scent, the name, and the rest of the line, and after our chat, I’m more excited about home-grown, Singaporean perfume brands.
The Brand
Epilogue Singapore did not begin in a perfumery, a lab, or a creative studio in a heritage shophouse. It began over dinner, in a five-room HDB flat, between two brothers with backgrounds in technology and a conviction that they could make something worth wearing. The brand launched in 2025, built around a single organising idea: that each fragrance is a chapter, and that a life, properly examined, is worth annotating. Their early sample programme said everything you need to know about how seriously they took the project. The brothers would spray fragrances onto scent strips, seal each one into smell-proof bags, and mail them out completely free of charge so that customers could experience the scents before spending a cent. Extremely time-consuming, but they had the passion and they did it anyway. That is the kind of house Epilogue is.
The Fragrance
“Senator, I’m Singaporean“ is an Extrait de Parfum, and the concentration is a considered creative decision rather than a marketing one. Josh wanted the opening to feel like “biting into a whole lime”, representing the real lived experience of the juice you drink at the hawker center and squeeze onto your Hokkien Mee. He connects the citrus to something larger, namely the dreams and ambitions that Singaporeans carry despite being raised in a society that has historically encouraged stability over risk. Calamansi opens bright and tangy, rambutan adds a soft tropical sweetness alongside it, and the floral heart of orchid and hibiscus stays light and petal-like rather than heady or cloying. The fragrance is formulated specifically for Singapore’s heat and humidity: refreshing and zingy where lesser citrus fragrances wilt, with the Extrait concentration doing the work of keeping everything present without tipping into heaviness. The base of wet soil after sudden rain, the concrete of a void deck, and the metal of the CBD skyline grounds everything without announcing itself. On skin, it performs exactly as promised: light, airy, and longer-lasting than you’d expect from something this fresh. It smells like a city that knows exactly what and who it is.
The Name
Here is where it gets interesting. The name is not an abstract gesture toward Singaporean identity, a vague nod to the Lion City, or an over-done reference to the Merlion. In January 2024, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before a United States Senate subcommittee. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, apparently unconvinced that Singapore exists as a sovereign nation, asked Chew repeatedly whether he was Chinese. Chew stated, with the patience of a man who has answered this particular question more times than he should have had to, that he was Singaporean. The clip became a meme. Then it resurfaced during the TikTok ban in January 2025, and what had seemed like a moment of political theatre revealed itself as something more recognisable: a portrait of a country perpetually required to explain itself to rooms that weren’t paying attention.
“It reminded me of something much deeper — of how misunderstood Singapore and Singaporeans can be. We are only about six million people and a small dot on the map, so naturally not many people know much about us. I thought the name was perfect for our fifth scent, where we could bottle our sentiments, lived experiences, emotions, daily objects and mundane routines in a small glass bottle.”
— Joshua Foong, Co-founder, Epilogue Singapore
Josh told me the name felt perfect precisely because of this: a way to bottle the sentiment, the lived experience, and the mild collective exasperation of being six million people on a small islamnd that the world can forget is its own thing. The inside joke is that the name is both funnier and more serious than it first appears.
The Lineup
The four fragrances that preceded Senator form the ‘Of Fiction and Non-fiction Collection‘, and they represent the specific period in the Epilogue story where Josh and his brother Izak were learning how to craft a scent technically, and how to translate a memory into one artistically. Allure of the Peach Garden began as an attempt to recreate a Korean niche fragrance Josh encountered in Seoul, but was transformed mid-process in favour of something original, built around rose and peach. The Apple of My Eye is a trip to Jeju with close friends. Under the Litchi Tree is the duos childhood, bottled. He Wore Fig in Autumn is the longing, familiar to anyone who has spent a Singapore August, for cooler weather that never comes. They were intentionally made to be very different from one another—floral, citrus, woody, oriental—because fragrance is deeply personal and everyone’s preferences deserve a chapter. Senator is where the personal becomes collective. It is the first release in The Little Red Dot Collection, launching in May at Boutique Fairs, alongside upcoming fragrances The Golden Rice Bowl, which explores what Singaporeans do, and The City That Never Sleeps, which explores why, and at what cost. Hand creams, reed diffusers, and scented candles will hopefully follow too. This is a brand building a world, not a catalogue.
The Future
There are two new fragrances arriving in May, and The Scent Parlor at 67 Circular Road is now the first physical space where you can test Epilogue on your skin before committing, because skin chemistry is the one variable no test strip can account for. Naturally, as an emerging local business, international expansion has been considered but, for now, set aside. Josh is candid about this in a way that is genuinely refreshing: a few hundred bottles sold is nowhere close to reaching everyone in Singapore, and Singapore should come first. “We have barely achieved anything,” he says. “This is only the tip of the iceberg. For now, we are taking it one step at a time. Baby steps.” The ambition, though, when he states it plainly, is anything but small. When you think of France, you think of Diptyque. When you think of the UK, you think of Penhaligon’s. When you think of Australia, you think of Aesop. One day, he hopes, when people think of Singapore, they’ll think of Epilogue. Smell Senator, I’m Singaporean for yourself, and you’ll find that hard to argue with.
Shop “Senator, I’m Singaporean” online through Epilogue’s website, or in person at The Scent Parlor.
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