Like many a perfume addict, I occasionally dream of owning my own perfume store. My own reverie revolves largely around having the opporunity to test lots of free perfume samples, and at no time do I bother considering such weighty issues as dealing with customers, much less actually trying to make money. I thought it might be interesting to ask a few retailers what the experience was really like.
Lisa Slavik opened Beauty Cafe in 1997. She carries Bond no. 9, L'Artisan, Eadward, Susanne Lang, Zents, and Comptoir Sud Pacifique among others.
Lisa, how and when did you first become interested in perfume?
When I was a child growing up in Hollywood, CA, there was a very elegant lady that lived in our apartment building. You knew when she had been in the elevator or in the halls because of the lingering fragrance of violets. To this day, some thirty something years later, I can still recall her signature fragrance. She was the epitome of elegance and class to me and as I grew older I swore that one day, I too would have a signature fragrance. Boy was I ever wrong on that one!
Later I discovered alt.fashion on the internet, and through that group I became acquainted with the Comptoir Sud Pacifique (CSP) line…