Shop Small logo courtesy of American Express
Over the past 12 years, I have a tradition to promote small, independent perfume boutiques on Small Business Saturday. The idea for our series We Love This Store began with our support for small business owners. This year, I chose to spotlight the 1200 square foot atelier of perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz for our Shop Small Saturday post. She’s an artisan, an olfactive artist, a jewelry designer and visual artist. She is prolific. One of the first perfumes we wrote about, American Beauty, is still in her prodigious collection of 500 + fragrances. Like many other small business owners around the world, Dawn knows each customer by name and there is never any pressure; many are clients who purchase online. Dawn has been awarded a 2019 Art and Olfaction Award for Colorado, her collaboration with American Perfumer©. In an industry of giant fragrance houses and corporations, please #ShopSmall.-Michelyn Camen– Editor-in Chief
Dawn Spencer Hurwitz at the DSH Perfumes the Essense Studio taken for our Shop Small Saturday 2025 feature
2025 has been a year of change for DSH Perfumes.
“As an independent perfumer, I have been creating bespoke and niche perfume collections since the 1990s; always with an eye on classical form and what moves me artistically, as well as a finger on the pulse of what my clients are looking for next. Since that time, as DSH Perfumes, I have created hundreds of fragrances for my perfume collection, including home fragrances and aromatherapy preparations, collaborated with museums and had generally released them by partnering with boutiques, as well as through our website, DSHPerfumes.com.
Dawn’s hand made jewelry wall
In 2008 I opened my first DSH Perfumes Essense studio shop to create a space for visitors to come and smell everything I have created, all in one place, and invite them into my creative world in general, which not only included my fragrances, but my visual art and handmade jewelry pieces.
Photo of the new DSH Perfumes the Essense studio photo for Shop Small
After 17 years in that space, we moved from our studio “shop” (a slightly more formal affair), into our studio “workshop”, which is a much more intimate invitation into the heart of our business. We also switched to a by appointment only schedule, which has allowed us to focus even more on client services like fragrance consultations, bespoke fragrance design, and private shopping —which fosters an even closer, one on one relationship with each one of our clients. It also gives us way more flexibility to accommodate each client’s needs for time.
By booking private appointments, it allows us to give truly personalized service to everyone who visits the studio. We get to spend time with each person, get to know what moves them and what gives the most pleasure through their scent preferences. Matching each person to the right fragrance is absolutely the most important thing. I want our clients to feel like the scent they find (or have created) brings a special beauty and sense of quality to their life. I want everyone’s life to feel better with the fragrances they discover in our studio. Happily, the feedback we hear most often is that coming to the studio is unlike anything else they’ve tried while finding a new perfume… that it’s the best experience they have ever had”.
Fragrance Consultation at DSH Perfumes the Essense Studio
At the new DSH Perfumes Essense studio, during our consultations, our clients not only get to try all of our perfume collections (not that anyone has ever samples ALL of them in one go), but if there are some particular notes that they love or have read about and wondered what it smelled like individually, we can show them; and then they see how the pieces come together to create the whole symphony of the fragrance they have just tested. It’s an expansive and immersive experience that fills the imagination. I want people to feel like coming into the studio is magical; like they smelled something new, and they learned something new — about fragrance and art, and about themselves, too”. –Dawn Spencer Hurwitz
DSH Perfumes the Essense Studio
4593 Broadway St, Suite A400, Boulder, Colorado, 80304
Phone: 720-563-0344
Available by appointment: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 – 5 pm MST (or sometimes later).
DSH Perfumes Annual THANK YOU Sale is happening now: use code: light2025 for 20% off sitewide * except for Scent of Hope.
All photos by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and cannot be used without permission
Holiday Sample Discovery Set no.2.
For Our Shop Small Saturday 2025 Giveaway: One of DSH Perfumes most popular Holiday Collection sets, with many of her best sellers included, fragrances from 2009 -2016 and 2025- Hanukah Cannelle, December, Caravan Spice, Cordial, Bois du Chocolat, Vanilla Bourbon Intense, Noél Enchanté, Dark Moon and her newest release for 2025, Snow Angels, for one registered reader in the continental USA. To be eligible, please leave a comment what sparked your interest about DSH Perfumes the Essence Studio, why you #shopsmall, what Small Business Saturday means to you and that you live in the contiguous USA. Do you have a favorite DSH Perfume? Draw closes 12/3/2025
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Enjoy Michelyn’s Interview with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes. Dawn was the first in our American perfumer series, which officially began in 2011
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