Small (Scent) Business Saturday

Small (Scent) Business Saturday

Happy weekend, fragrance friends! Today is “Small Business Saturday”, an opportunity to shop locally, and support small independent businesses — like many of the perfumers and fragrance retailers we all love. Some have special discounts this weekend; others simply offer the same reasonable prices many have year-round. The list below is somewhat arbitrary, but most are websites I have used myself.

Discounts (some started yesterday):

DSH Perfumes: sparkle2018 (20% off sitewide); gifts with purchase also available.

Indigo Perfumery: blackfriday2018 (20% off full bottles)

Le Jardin Retrouve: free shipping worldwide this weekend

PK Perfumes: PKCYBER30 (30% sitewide and free shipping)

Shelley Kyle: THANKFUL (30% off sitewide)

Smell Bent: WONDERFUL (40% off sitewide)

Twisted Lily: THANKYOU2018 (20% off entire order)

Independent perfumers (mostly in the US) who sell directly:

Aftelier Perfumes

Dame Perfumery

En Voyage Perfumes

Eris Parfums

Lili Bermuda

Providence Perfume Company

Sixteen92: various codes for discounts depending on purchase

Solstice Scents

St. Clair Scents

Independent perfumeries (retailers):

Aedes Perfumery

American Perfumer

Arielle Shoshana

LuckyScent: special Black Friday sample set

Perfumology

Smallflower Apothecary (Merz)

The Perfumed Court (samples and decants)

Twisted Lily perfume store in Brooklyn NY

Twisted Lily store; image from http://www.timeout.com.

American Perfumers

Allure Magazine has posted a fascinating article on several independent American perfumers: The American Perfumer’s Modern Approach to Fragrance.

A movement composed of independent, homegrown perfumers is reshaping the fragrance landscape, gradually changing the way we approach and experience scent. Straying from tradition, these olfactory trailblazers are creating fragrances with a distinctly American feel — solitary, rugged, luminous. A new frontier. But there’s another virtue, beyond the pioneering spirit, that motivates this group to push boundaries and break genres. It’s called defiance, and it’s just as entrenched in our American mentality. These artisans are inspired not necessarily by their love of fragrance but by a sense of opposition to it.

If you are curious about CB I Hate Perfume, Juniper Ridge, D.S. & Durga, Joya, Phlur, Imaginary Authors, check out journalist Liana Schaffner’s take on on their work. As for me, I think there are a few more discovery set and sample purchases in my near future! Even though my reviews here have not kept pace with the trial sizes I already have from other brands … I’m surprised she didn’t include Jeffrey Dame’s Dame Perfumery, another independent brand I am eager to explore, or Mandy Aftel’s Aftelier Perfumes. As I think about it, though, there are so many American perfumers who could have been mentioned in an article like this that there simply isn’t enough space.

Have you tried any of these brands’ fragrances? What did you think?

Update: Victoria and Jessica at Bois de Jasmin have pointed out that the Allure article did not mention any women indie perfumers, of whom there are many! So they and other contributors to that (excellent) blog propose to remedy the oversight by starting a series of articles about those important contributors to modern American perfumery, starting this week. Check them out!

Featured image: copyright Jared Platt.