Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lindsay Hirth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lindsay , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
A few years ago, my mom gave me a bunch of candles and scented products for Christmas. I worked from home and used candles quite often throughout the day. I loved the scents, but I quickly noticed that I was getting headaches and a sore throat whenever I used them, and so were my two young kids. I learned that most mass-market scented products use chemicals that cause the reaction I was having, and I wanted to find a healthier alternative. I figured, “how hard could it be to make more natural candles?” (The answer, as it would turn out, is “harder than you’d think.”)
I began experimenting with candles in my kitchen, making one mistake after another. After a few months of turning my kitchen into a candle studio, I felt confident in what I was doing with the materials I was using. I mastered the technical aspects of the craft, and the candles I made were fine and they were certainly more natural than what I had used before…but I was struggling with the scent creation part of the process.
I invested a ton of resources researching and sampling fragrance elements made with natural ingredients, and the scents were always very hit or miss…mostly misses. I felt out of place in the market…like I couldn’t find scents that I liked. I was in my late-thirties and wanted scents that smelled sophisticated and modern. I didn’t want scents that smelled like mass-market candle and body products I bought as a teen, and I wanted more options than pure essential oils (which are very limiting once you factor in cost).
During this time, I took a trip to Paris and attended a perfuming workshop. It was there that I began learning the art of perfuming. I learned the basics and created my own custom perfume…and I completely fell in love with the process. It was like a whole new world of possibilities and ideas opened up in front of me. Frankly, it was very empowering to realize I could create the exact scent I wanted, and each scent could evoke a certain emotion. This epiphany helped me shape a whole new personal philosophy about scent and the power it had to help me enhance my mood or feel a certain way.
When I returned home, I was obsessed. I was constantly reading about perfuming and experimenting with oils in my kitchen. I started inviting friends over to have them create custom scents and candles, and the look of joy on their faces when they realized they could do this was just priceless. It was then that I got the idea to start a workshop. I wanted to bring the Paris perfuming workshop to the US and expand on that concept. I imagined a physical space and class where people could create their own personalized scent. And once we developed the scent, we could add that to a candle or perfume so they could have the same experience I fell in love with.
That idea, which started as a whisper in my heart, became louder and clearer…and eventually it was a fire in my gut, and then a nagging voice in my head that said, “if you don’t try, you’ll always wonder ‘what if?’” I dove into researching the market and was surprised to learn that businesses like the one I imagined didn’t exist. There were a few candle-making workshops around the country, but they focus on the process of making the candle. To me, the fun part was about creating a custom scent. But I quickly realized why these workshops weren’t offering custom scents…the challenge, of course, is figuring out how to create a large number of custom scents in the time constraints of a two-hour workshop and for a reasonable price.
Another challenge was figuring out how to help people connect with scent in a meaningful way so that they could feasibly create perfumes they actually liked. I had to condense perfuming fundamentals into a 20-minute tutorial. I also wanted to help people create scents with intention—to use aromatherapy very literally—rather than simply putting together aromas that smelled good. If you have the ability to do something custom, it ought to be special.
After a lot of sampling, number-crunching, and thinking through every little detail of the process, I invited my friends to a commercial studio I had rented for a day. I hosted my first workshop to the scale of what I knew I would need to make a business feasible…and it was a success. I had tested the concept, and it worked. Mostly. We created 16 custom scents and 32 candles in two hours, and I had about 246 ideas on how to improve the process.
Still, starting a brick-and-mortar business was a big risk for me. I had two kids, and I couldn’t just quit my job. I spent months poring over financial projections before I finally signed my first lease. It was for a 750 sq ft open studio in a renovated cotton mill. With exposed brick walls, giant industrial windows, and worn wood floors, it was rather dreamy. But it was on the outskirts of town in a building full of artists’ studios and offices but zero retail space. Because of that, and the fact that I am very financially cautious, I decided to offer workshops on just weekends. This allowed me to keep my day job but created very long work weeks.
I launched Scent Workshop in the fall of 2018. The business gained momentum through 2020. After shifting the strategy and location because of the pandemic, I opened a new retail store and workshop space in the fall of 2020. And my best friend fell in love with the concept and decided to open a Scent Workshop of her own in Illinois. Over the past 2 years, the stores have grown consistently, and we are planning to launch more stores this year. As our brand expands and adds new products, we stay true to the concept of helping people evoke feelings with their scents. It’s entirely possible to make scent personal, not just mass-produced.
Lindsay , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
On a trip to Paris, I attended a perfuming workshop to learn the fundamentals of blending scents. I had always loved how scents can trigger memories and create specific moods, and I fell in love with the art of perfuming. I began studying perfuming as well as creating candles and body goods in my kitchen and giving them as gifts. I wanted to share my passion for clean products and connect others with the creative process of playing with wax and oils. What began as a candle-making party in my kitchen with friends turned into an idea to create custom scent workshops.
Today, I’m the founder of Scent Workshop—a custom scent business. We believe scent should be personal, not mass-produced. And we know that we don’t need to depend on men in France to decide what smells good. We can create signature scents that tell our own personal story––scents that make us feel a certain way––as long as we have the tools. Our goal is to provide those tools and empower people to create beautiful, clean products.
In addition to candle and perfume workshops, we offer pre-made home and body goods as well as kits to share this experience with others. All of our products are hand-made and poured in small batches. We currently have two shops—one in North Carolina and one in Illinois. We also create custom products for businesses throughout the country.
We believe in empowering people to lead beautiful lives. As such, Scent Workshop provides micro-loans to women entrepreneurs through Kiva.org.
About Me Personally: I live in Greensboro, North Carolina. My professional background includes work in non-profits, education, and e-commerce. I’m usually working, developing scents, designing labels, or walking my overly energetic dog, but I never miss a chance to have a latte or a dance party with my kids.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I opened the workshop studio in late 2018. Over the year and a half that followed, the business grew steadily. My weekend workshops were often sold out, and I had a growing list of wholesale clients. As people fell in love with the scents in general, I also added pre-made candles and body goods to the website. Then came COVID.
As it turns out, having 21 strangers packed into a small studio isn’t ideal during a pandemic. After a few teary nights, I decided to closed the studio. I’ll never forget the night that I looked at my full workshop calendar and just pushed “Refund” over and over again on my computer. I was crushed, but not because of the financial loss—I felt like I losing a part of me. This business had brought me so much joy—it was how I met most of my friends, and I had countless stories of how these custom scents were helping people feel better.
But after a few teary weeks, I realized that people were bored in their homes and wanted creative projects to do. So I launched Candle and Perfume Kits, which were basically boxed versions of the workshop, and my very kind customers went crazy for them. They kept me busy to the point that I realized my business wasn’t over…I just needed to pivot. In the fall of 2020, I opened a new location of Scent Workshop, with more retail space.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
We try to connect with every single guest in our workshops. We have two hours with about 15 guests, and that usually means we have time to help guests and get to know what they want from a scent. Because of this, I often become friends with our guests! Our customers often recommend the workshop to friends, or they’ll schedule a private party and bring a dozen new clients. This word of mouth is what helped us steadily and then exponentially grow the business. To date, all of our customer reviews have been 5-star ratings; we take this as a privilege but also as a goal to maintain. It’s a reflection of the quality of the experience we offer, but it’s also an indication of our growth strategy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://scentworkshop.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scentworkshop.co/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scentworkshop