Once upon a time there was a wizard of scent who lived in the shadow of the great mountains. From her small shop she created potions that enchanted all who smelled the magical fragrances. Her fame grew to the far reaches of the kingdom and seekers of beauty traveled from far and wide to try her creations.
Okay, I'm being a bit fanciful but it describes the excitement I felt when I realized that I would finally be able to meet Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, one of the most influential perfumers in my personal perfume journey. Her creations helped send me down the rabbit hole of the world of scent and opened my eyes to how creative this medium can be. In June I was visiting a friend who had relocated to Boulder, and the winding mountain road we took from her house in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains literally spilled me out at the intersection where Dawn's shop sits on the main road to downtown Boulder.
Serendipity.
The shop is small and my first thought was how can the large
DSH Perfumes catalog of scents possibly be contained here? The space is welcoming and intimate and shelves line every wall, and there is indeed a large collection of perfumes on display. A cozy couch provides a space for visitors to sit and let Dawn guide them through the scent selection process as the large selection can be a bit overwhelming for the uninitiated (but a bonus for those of us always looking for the next new thing). A small office behind the showroom serves as Dawn's creative area and holds shelves lined with fragrant essences as well as tokens of inspiration, such as a retro mink stole that Dawn refered to when creating her recent series on fur scents. Packages are prepared for mailing in a small room that showed signs of lots of orders going out to eager customers. This small creative space reminded me of a queen bee and her busy hive of activity!
If you follow
DSH Perfumes on Instagram, you know that Dawn regularly does live stream videos from her shop where she connects with her very loyal customers and describes new perfumes she is working on or scents that she think fit the season. Dawn is exactly as she appears on the videos, open and natural, and when we met it truly did seem that I already knew her. A lot has been written about Dawn and how she got her creative start in Boston before moving to Boulder, so I decided to ask about another topic which has always interestsed me, her association with the art world and how it affects her perfume creation process.
Me outside the Essense Studio, Boulder.
It was about ten years ago that I first became aware of Dawn's perfumes. This was back before Facebook was big, and a lot of fragrance chatting went on at MakeupAlley.com and Basenotes, as well as the small number of fragrance blogs that existed at that time. The perfumed project that caught my attention was a collaboration between
DSH Perfumes and the Denver Museum of Art. The exhibit was about the court at Versailles, and Dawn created a series of perfumes called
The Perfumed Court to illustrate fragrances that could have been worn by various members of the royal court at Versailles. What I found really fascinating was that she limited herself to using materials that were available in that era, and she did a lot of research to find out what scents the more famous historical figures would have been likely to use. I believe this sample set was my first order from DSH Perfumes and I loved the creativity of the marriage between scent and art. I asked Dawn to talk about how this association came about.
Dawn: "The very first time the DMA reached out to me was for the
Artisans and Kings exhibit which were artifacts borrowed from the Louvre. They were artifacts that had to do with Versailles and Louis XIV, XV, and XVI. They wanted to do a show around artisans who worked for the King. They had a cheese maker, a winemaker, a baker. They were looking for something to do with all the senses and they wanted something for the sense of smell.They were looking around for a perfumer and they found me, and this is totally the kind of thing I like to do. I love research projects. They asked me to do a lecture on fragrances of the period. So I said, should I design something? And they said that would be great. And that was the very first time. I ended up making a collection of about eight fragrances and the museum would sell the collection during the course of the show. The program was such a success and they had such good feedback that now I'm on their creatives list and they reach out to me when they feel they're going to have a show that would be a nice pairing."
Of the collections Dawn has created in conjunction with the museum, she says that the YSL (Yves Saint Laurent) exhibit and the King Tut remain the best sellers, followed by
Giverny In Bloom, which happens to be my personal favorite set. I asked how she approaches making scents for the exhibit.
Dawn: "Sometimes, like with the Yves Saint Laurent, I go in advance and see the show and pick out what pieces I would like to speak about and be a part of my lecture. Sometimes I do my talks in the lecture hall and other times I will take people through the exhibit, give my talk, and have people literally smell their way through the exhibit, and so it becomes a multi-sensory experience."
Dawn's retro fur served as inspiration for a perfume series based on the smell of fur.
Dawn's creative output has seemed to me, an avid follower, to become even more prolific of late and I asked her if this was really the case. For instance, she recently introduced the Heirloom Collection of scents.
Dawn: "I had this realization that I have all these notebooks full of ideas. I'm producing quite a lot but I have these creative needs so I have to deal with it. I consider myself an artist first and foremost and I treat this place more like an art studio than a perfume house. I'm making art and presenting it to my audience. But I realized that even though I am producing so much, I still have these notebooks with ideas that I would love to get to, but I don't want to do everything in a full launch that will be produced forever. I was talking to Michelyn Camen of
Cafleurebon about this lament of mine and she said I should start doing limited editions and that I could do them rapid fire. It was really her brilliant idea to have this caveat that if you buy a signed and numbered limited edition bottle you get put on the registry and then you can buy it even after the edition is closed, so if you fall in love with one it can still be your signature scent. This way I can keep things to really small batches and be crazy creative and perhaps work with materials that I can only get a small amount of. I have lots of stashes of amazing materials that I want to work with, but can only get in a small amount."
Dawn partnered with Dave Kern of American Perfumer to produce
Colorado which won the Independent Award at this year's Art & Olfaction Awards in Amsterdam. I asked Dawn about this partnership to create the award-winning scent, which has already sold out.
Dawn: "The American Perfumer shop in Kentucky features only artisan American perfumers and is one of a kind in the US. I was honored to be offered their first limited edition. Originally Dave Kern said, 'I'd love it to be where eventually we have all fifty states represented', and so that's why it was named
Colorado. I wanted to speak to the beautiful atmospheric aroma that you can find here. When the Ponderosa Pine bark is exuding its balsam and amber it has this very unique aroma, kind of like maple syrup and vanilla, so that aspect is the undertone of
Colorado. It has an airy conifer smell because in Colorado when you're in the mountains, even if you're in the forest there still feels like there is a lot of air moving around, not like the East Coast where the forests are more dense."
Dawn keeps an assortment of perfumes that never quite made it to market but are lovely nonetheless. They are for sale at fantastic prices so if you ever visit her shop do have a look. I couldn't resist picking up three originals:
Jasmine Light, which is exactly what the name says but morphs into a beauty of a beach scent;
Central Park In Spring, a bitter-green dry scent which I'm finding addicting; and
Spring Rain, as clean and refreshing as a rain shower and then drying in the sun.
So what's coming next?
One project outside the DSH Perfumes umbrella that Dawn has upcoming is a collaboration with Victor Wong of Zoologist Perfumes. He commissioned her to create a perfume which will be called Snowy Owl, the notes of which she was not leaking when we talked back in June.
As for
DSH Perfumes, Dawn has some fun new fragrances she is introducing for summer. "I'm going to be doing a lot more launches, and by that I mean things that are not going to be limited edition or heirloom,"
"We're doing this thing called Summer Fun in June, July and August," Dawn said. "It will be semi humorous, fun ideas because I like that sort of thing. For June we're doing
Avocado Toast - the hipster skin scent. It's an interpretation. If people are expecting it to smell literally like avocado toast, which has very little smell, then they are going to be disappointed because it doesn't smell like avocado toast. It takes the elements of avocado toast and amplifies them to create a perfume. A really fresh avocado has this green juicy quality. So it's green to creamy as it starts, then it shifts to warm and toasty. When you toast bread it caramelizes, so you have a little bit of that; not caramel exactly, but a sweet undertone. It was designed to be a skin scent and fun to wear, and just really delicious. It's easy to wear, not like a major perfume. I think it's fun to do things that are serious and things that are not serious."
Find this recipe at www.gimmedelicious.com
Other than the fact that avocado toast is probably my favorite breakfast, especially with fried egg on top, I had no clue what to expect from this scent. Well I'm here to tell you, avocados wish they smelled like this. The opening is a very creamy, yummy gourmand green. The caramelized toast smell is experienced through notes of grain, warm butter, and a delicious amber-like accord which may come from the notes of immortale. It is a warm, yummy gourmand scent that wears extremely close to the skin. Dawn, if you need anymore ideas, I'd love to see a perfume featuring this burnt toast accord, but stronger. It has me wanting more. If any of you tried last year's Jo Malone limited edition which included notes of grain it reminds me slightly of some of these scents, but better.
Another recent addition to the DSH Perfumes line is
Royal Grey Cologne. Customers had been clamouring for Dawn to make an Earl Grey tea scent and this all botanical perfume is the result.
www.OliverPluff.com
Royal Grey Cologne is very bergamot forward and it is a brisk, fresh scent. It feels a bit oily, just like the bergamot oil they use to flavor Chinese black tea to make it in the Earl Grey fashion. The bergamot hangs around for a while but eventually the black tea note creeps in, and that is when I was rewarded with one of the scent memories that hits you ...
poof... with a long buried memory revived by the smell of a forgotten moment. When I was very young my Grandparents lived in the Texas countryside and ran a few cattle. We would visit and I loved cramming into their small two bedroom house with all the cousins who lived nearby. My grandmother would brew dark black tea in preparation for the evening meal and the smell of the black tea in this perfume made me remember that moment. My grandmother would put several tea bags into a ceramic bowl that looked like an ear of corn. It is one of two things I took when she died and it sits in my kitchen today. The tea bags were an inexpensive brand, probably Lipton, but she used several and the tea was inky black. Then she would add in two full cups of sugar and the scent became syrupy and rich. I could smell the sugar melting as it met the hot tea. I didn't like sweet tea. My own Mom served us unsweetened tea with mint leaves and that's how I preferred to drink it, but the sweet tea did have a certain fullness and rich undertones that smelled delicious. Dawn describes this on her website as "the dense richness and liquor/floralcy of black tea." As the perfume wears the bergamot is still present but black tea notes along with very subtle floral notes provide a realistic and brisk cup of Earl Grey tea.
Gardenia Vitreaux is the third entry in DSH Perfumes
Flowers for Men series. The name translates to Glassy Gardenia and is a modern take on the gardenia flower, which is usually represented in either a lush voluptuous form or with a tropical twist.
Gardenia Vitreaux opens with a slight aldehyde lift, followed by notes of musk, ambergris, and eventually leather. This is a very different gardenia than you will have encountered before and does make this flower accessible to men who aren't drawn to the flower in its sweeter form.
Au Crepescule de Lavande, or
In the Lavender Twilight was a spring introduction and April bestseller for DSH Perfumes. I went to Provence last summer and got to walk in the fields of narcotic lavender, breathing in their healing goodness and heady scent.
Au Crepescule de Lavande perfectly catches that feeling of standing in a a field of lavender, bees buzzing, the air filled with herbal scents, sticky honey, and the soft fuzz of lavender buds. Dawn wanted to create a different sort of lavender perfume, not one with the feel of an aromatherapy session or day at the spa. "I wanted a full blown retro nouveau perfume that has vintage elements and an immense elegance," Dawn says on her website. I love the honeyed sweet herbal lavender mish-mash of notes that takes the smells of nature but gives it a slight gourmand spin and dressy elements that make it feel like a classic French perfume. I personally love lavender and
Au Crepescule de Lavande is luscious and a must try for lavender lovers. This will be my next bottle order.
Dawn has added a second perfume to her Nocturne series. The first was
Je Suis La Lune, a jasmine laced ode to the moon. In her newest,
Vers la Voute Etoilee (Toward the Starry Vault) : Nocturne No. 2, Dawn looks toward the stars for inspiration. Dawn came across a piece of music with this beautiful phrase and was inspired to create a perfume. Dawn says on her website, "I hope that with V
ers la Voute Etoilee you will feel yourself hushed among the night blooming flowers of summer as you breath in the awe inspiring stars of the heavens above."
When Dawn heard I love white flowers she told me that I would probably like
Vers la Voute Etoilee and she was right. Dawn said, "It's based on night scented stock and there are not a lot of perfumes out there based on night scented stock. It will have star jasmine and stargazer lily. It's starry, sparkly, so it will have aldehydes in it. And it's nighttime so there will be a chypre background. It will feel classical and retro."
Vers la Voute Etoilee opens with a dewy, earthy floral note, as if the flowers have been ripped from the earth and bits of dirt cling to the roots. I have tried so many of Dawn's perfumes that I can recognize her fingerprint in certain notes, and this reminds me of a similar effect in
Giverney In Bloom or
l' Opera des Rouges et des Roses. It is such a realistic garden note and gives an authenticity to the florals. In addition to star jasmine, stargazer lily, and night stock there is black petunia. After the fresh lushness of the opening fades the white flowers become softer, almost a touch powdery. There is definitely a retro feel to the perfume. I get the slight sweetness of beeswax, as if there are candles flickering in our white flower garden bower. The florals have staying power on my skin, but the perfume eventually transitions into notes of oak moss, woods, civet, and musk. These notes also make
Vers la Voute Etoille feel like it could have traveled through time. I really enjoyed the beauty of the white flowers conveyed in such an elegant manner. I can imagine I'm laying on my lawn in the garden of night blooming flowers as they emit a hazy sweet perfume, looking at the swath of twinkling stars above.
A big thanks to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz for welcoming me into her studio and being so generous with her time, as she had back-to-back interviews that day.
A big thanks to my friend Betsy Zink for the photographs of Dawn and her studio! And thank you to Dawn for providing me with these samples.
