Announcer: 0:07

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer: 0:34

Can the perfume that you're wearing reveal who you are? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a transition coach and catalyst for women who are ready to raise the bar in their own lives. And you can find me on reInventimpossible.com. Sue Phillips is an internationally renowned fragrance expert, an entrepreneur, and one of the most celebrated figures in the fragrance industry. For over the course of 35 years, she has elevated fragrance from a luxury product to a personal art form and a tool for healing. She was the creator of fragrances for Tiffany, Burberry, Diane von Furstenberg, and the founder of Centerprises, where she's crafted perfumes for celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, and thousands of people looking for their own signature scent. So meet Sue Phillips, a woman who's reinvented herself across continents, careers, marriages, and industries, all through the power of perfume.

Sue Phillips: 1:51

Welcome, Sue. Oh my goodness. Thank you for that amazing introduction. I'm looking around. Who is she talking about? It's you, my friend.

Beverley Glazer: 2:01

It's you. So what was it like growing up in South Africa? You had a creative mother, you had an entrepreneurial father, and there was you, and you were in South Africa. What was your life like? I love to start there.

Sue Phillips: 2:20

You know, when I was a little girl, um South Africa was wonderful. Um, my mom, as you said, was an amazing artist and a calligraphist and a beautiful homemaker, and my dad was an entrepreneurial business maker. So, you know, we had a wonderful upbringing until I realized that that wasn't what everybody was having. And uh it was very politically divided. And I went, I left Johannesburg, I went to Cape Town to study drama because I had always had a natural theatrical bent. And when I left Johannesburg to go to Cape Town, it really upset me that we were not allowed to go to the, you know, after a theater or a show or a community event uh with uh acting, we weren't able to go and celebrate each other at the same restaurants with my with my you know um other uh uh actor friends, uh blacks or colored or Indians, and it really guiled me. And so I went to um England and I just felt that it was important that I showed my you know my allegiance to everybody, not just um the South African um regime there. But um, and I auditioned for Rada. And so because I was from South Africa, unfortunately I didn't get a post because they only wanted to give it to British people and certainly not to South Africans at the time. So, on the one hand, life growing up in South Africa was wonderful as a young girl, and then suddenly I became aware of the situation, and I realized it wasn't for me. And so uh I have very good early memories, but they were clouded because of the political situation. And then uh my brother was living in New York, so after I didn't get into Rada, I decided that okay, America is for me. And I came on a vacation in 1976 for the bicentennial celebration. Oh my goodness, what a magical time that was. America was on fire. It was the time of this 200th anniversary, it was celebrated in every city, and of course, living in New York at the time, uh, the big ships and the fireworks was just great. And so I came here in 77 uh to emigrate, and I've been here ever since, since 1977.

Beverley Glazer: 4:52

And when you landed in New York, here you were a young girl with an aspiring actress, like I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of other young girls. And uh, did you pursue acting?

Sue Phillips: 5:07

I did. I went to see an immigration attorney because a friend of mine who had immigrated here said, Go and see this lawyer, he's great. I went to see him, he said, What do you do, young lady? I said, Well, I'm a singer and an actress. He said, Stop. We have 20,000 out of work singers and actresses. We don't need another one from South Africa. So I said, oops, okay. But he liked my accent, he liked how I looked, and he said, Well, I will process your green card because, oh, and he asked me a crucial question, well, what else do you do? I said, Well, my mother had always said, if I'm going to be in theater, I should have something concrete to fall back on. And so she encouraged me to do a secretarial course, which I did. Now, in those days, shorthand and typing were very key talents. You know, now nobody knows shorthand, and everybody types because of the internet. But at the time, um, it was a very, you know, sought-after um talents for people to be in business. And so he said to me, Well, were you any good as doing a secretarial course? I said, and by the way, he asked me the question, I knew that was my ticket into America. So I said, yes. So he said that he would process my green card if I worked for him as his office manager, office secretary, and greet guests and help with immigration and all those things. And I said, Well, I haven't done shorthand in many, many years, but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go to one of these schools, courses, take a course, refresh a course, and do shorthand and typing. Of course, nobody knows what shorthand is today. But, you know, in legal terms, you have to actually know how to do shorthand and take these monstrous briefs and just write them as quickly as people speak. So I got the job. He processed my green card. At night I'd go singing and acting because I wanted to keep up my skills. And uh at the end of the year, when I got my green card, I went on three job offers. I went to a headhunter who got me three job offers. One was to work in banking, so that wasn't for me. One was to work in fashion. At the time, we didn't know anything about fashion from South Africa because we were so isolated. But the third job offer was to work at Elizabeth Arden. And I just said, that's it. It's a culmination of all the things I love: theater, art, music, um, you know, perfumes and all that. And so I got the job as the executive secretary for the president of Elizabeth Arden. And it was a great position, although I didn't love being a secretary, but it was a really wonderful entry first entry position in this cosmetic industry and meeting everybody in the retail world and in come, you know, the competitors and understanding the fragrance industry. So that's what I did. And at the end of the year, when I got my green card, I started Elizabeth Arden. And the rest is history. I mean, I went to Elizabeth Arden and then Lancombe and then Tiffany. And it's it's a it's a pretty remarkable journey. If you told me growing up in South Africa that this is where I'd be, I'd say not possible, but miracles happen.

Beverley Glazer: 8:23

Miracles certainly do happen, yes. But also tell me, Sue, how did they train you? Here you were uh a secretary, right? Um, that's pretty remote from the perfume.

Sue Phillips: 8:38

So how did they train you? That's a really terrific question. And it's one that um my boss recognized in me. So when I worked for the president Joe Ronchetti, um, you know, when I would go singing and acting at night, I would invite them all. And he said to me, you know, I've seen you perform in front of, you know, strangers and in front of um our sales meeting events. He said, you know, you'd be great in training. So of course, because I was so new to the industry, I really didn't understand what training meant. He said, it's training the people who sell the products behind the counter about the products, the packaging, the branding, the story behind the fragrances, and then you have to motivate the people behind the counter to sell the product. He said, but in order for you to do that, you have to know how to appreciate and explain the products and the brands. So I want you to study fragrance and I want you to learn about fragrance. So he said, I had to go sell behind the counter at Macy's. And it was a great way to understand who the customer is, you know, these fancy ladies in their fur coats who didn't want to spend the money, but the little old ladies who love the Chloe fragrance or the Lagerfeld fragrance, they'll peel off the dollar bills. It was such an interesting, an interesting journey to really realize who is the customer and what do they want. And so, and then I had to go and study perfumery, you know, how the brands were made and where the brands were made, and went to the fragrance houses and understood the different notes. So it was a great learning experience for me. And in fact, one of the gentlemen who was instrumental in really branding and licensing Chloe from Carl Lagerfeld's House of Chloe to Elizabeth Arden said to me as I was training with him about the brand and Chloe and Lagerfeld, he said, Sue, I want you to become a fragrance expert. How am I going to do that? How am I actually going to do that? Um, and so that was the start of it, you know, to really understand the brand essence, the story, and how the customer reacts to fragrance and what fragrance appeals to the customer. And so after my three-month orientation at Macy's, I then became the national training director. I traveled around the country setting up training schools. Now, because of my mom's background and influence, I was always very aware of art and music and colors and sensory aspects. And so I really transformed a dull hotel conference room into a beautiful magical oasis with the colors of the Chloe fragrance, the music playing, the fragrance in the air, so that when people came into the conference room, they were bowled over. It was like walking into the world of Chloe or Lagerfeld or eventually Burberry. And I always wanted to make it a sensory experience. Nobody taught me that. It was just innate because I come from a very creative background. And that has stayed, stood, that has stood with me for all these years. And I still today create these magical fragrance experiences all about fragrance and the brand and the consumer and what it means to them to learn about fragrance.

Beverley Glazer: 12:06

Yeah. But that was a heavy, full-time job. Oh, yes. You you were still a young girl, you had to travel all over.

Sue Phillips: 12:17

90% of the year I spend traveling, um, going to every state, every city, every major department store where they sold the Chloe and the Elizabeth Arden product. And at one point I went to my boss and I said, you know, this traveling is killing me. Because I'm, you know, I go home for a weekend, take my clothes to the dry cleaner, pack a, unpack the case, pack the case to go on for another two weeks stint. And after doing that for two years, I'd learnt a lot. But he then said to me, Well, you've really done well in the training. Now let's think about cosmetics. And they wanted to help me understand the cosmetics. So from fragrance, I went to cosmetics. You know, what girl doesn't love to learn about lipstick and eyeshadows and nail polish and just the foundation, so to speak, of cosmetics. And then eventually an opening came up in the fragrance department for marketing. And I loved fragrance, and I missed it when I was in the cosmetics department. So they gave me the opportunity to become a marketing manager for freight for the fragrance brands. And I felt at home until I left and I went to Lancombe because they offered me a bigger position.

Beverley Glazer: 13:38

What were the challenges back then of a woman in business, traveling in and out, a suitcase? What were your challenges? It wasn't easy.

Sue Phillips: 13:49

It wasn't easy. And you know, um, just traveling so much to all these out-of-the-way places, some were big cities and some were smaller cities. And you know, it was really interesting because certain things happened. So I would check into a hotel late at night, having done a breakfast session in the morning in one city and then a luncheon with somebody else, and then going to the next city and checking into the hotel. And when I first started that, I would get really crazy phone calls in the middle of the night. And then I realized when I check into the hotel, the concierge or the checking in registry guy would say, Okay, Miss Phillips, your room is 525, enjoy your stay here. So eventually I got smart and I said when I checked into hotels, do not mention my name and do not mention my hotel room, because I do not want unsolicited calls in the middle of the night. And it was never a factor for men. They didn't think about it. You said, Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, hello, welcome to 402, enjoy your time. That's the first thing. The second thing is when I would actually at the end of a semester when I'd been exhausted, I always made a point of going to have room service in my hotel room because I was exhausted and I didn't want to get up. And a woman on her own in a restaurant in those days was very odd. So one time I was in Seattle and I always stayed at nice hotels because the company wanted to obviously, you know, portray the right ambiance and the right image for the people who came to our events and our training schools. So one day I said, okay, it's my last week, it's my last trip. I'm going to go downstairs and have dinner or lunch or whatever it was in the restaurant on my own. Well, you would have thought that a pariah had walked in. So out of the corner of my eye, I see a security guard. And he looked at me. So it was afternoon tea, and then I was going to have dinner. So I just I didn't want to drink. But I said, the guy came over and said, Oh, uh, good afternoon, or good evening, miss. May I help you? And I realized what he was thinking, that I might have been a lady of the night and wasn't soliciting. So I said, he said, what can I do for you? Why, you know, what are you doing here? I said, I'm an immigration attorney. I'd like a cup of tea, please. I just thought that was the only thing, because I used to work for an immigration attorney. But today that wouldn't happen because of all the new laws and the and the problems with you know harassment. But you know, it was very difficult in those days, and it was the norm. It was absolutely the norm. Nobody thought anything less of it because you know, women didn't travel and men were able to say and do whatever they wanted, which I guess still happens today, but um it was not so much. Not so much.

Beverley Glazer: 16:51

Not so much, yes. And how did that play on your social life?

Sue Phillips: 16:56

Well, my social life was actually in limbo. So um I had been married in South Africa. I got married very young. And when we came to America, um, I thrived, I loved it, and he didn't love it so much. And when I got the job at Elizabeth Arden, and then the training job, which meant that I would have to train um and travel a great deal, I said to myself, well, it'll either be out of sight, out of mind, or absence makes the heart grow fonder. So uh it was the first one, and um it wasn't really for me, the relationship wasn't for me. Uh, I thrived in America, he didn't, and I thought that this is my opportunity, so we divorced. Um the second time um I got married was actually because I had met um the president of Lancombe, Joe Augury, who actually had heard about me at Elizabeth Garden. He called me for an interview, and I went, and um, they hired me to really help build the tiny little fragrance division, which was basically Magie Noir, a beautiful fragrance that was launched early on in the 1920s or 30s, and it was a very green chypre fragrance, but it was very sophisticated, it was a very European fragrance. And at that time, Lancome was really, you know, 48% of their business came from cosmetics, and 50% of their business came from treatment, and two little percentage points came from the fragrance division. But because I was so passionate about fragrance, I got the job, and they eventually called me Miss Maji because I was really pounding the pavements for Majin Ruan. I created all these marketing programs. But I met my second husband through the president of Lancombe because my ex-husband, he was a he became an ex-was a big retail guy. And you know, he they had all the fragrance the products and the fragrances from all the companies at their retail store. So um that was interesting that I met my next husband because of my cosmetics background and experience.

Beverley Glazer: 19:06

Yeah. And why did you leave corporate? Your career was so strong. Why center prices?

Sue Phillips: 19:13

Well, because at the time I then was pregnant with my new my daughter, and um I had traveled so much, and you know, I was not 25, I was a little bit older than that. And when I had complications, the doctor said to me, You've got to stop traveling, and you really have to take care of yourself. So when I had the baby, I decided, you know, this is my time to really start a consulting business. I didn't want to stop working, but I didn't really want to leave the baby either. And so I started my own company, which I originally called Susan Phillips Enterprises. Not exciting and not innovative at all, it's just my name. But I get my best ideas late at night and And so one morning around four o'clock or five o'clock, I I sort of sent an enterprises and I wrote it down. And the next day I said, wow, what a great name. So I trademarked it. So that was a way for me to really achieve both things that I loved, wanted to be a bad baby and also wanted to continue my work. And I did, and and I then incorporated in 2008, when the pandemic came, that started a whole new group of challenges. Because when I was consulting, I actually consulted with the House of Burberry, created the Burberry fragrance for Trish McAvoy, for Avon. I was at Avon as a consultant for about five years, doing different initiatives, the um all in fragrance and home care as well. Created a fragrance for Diane von Furstenberg for Avon called Beauty Begins at Home and Air Freshness. And it was a wonderful opportunity. I had many, many different clients while I was doing consulting. And then in 2008, the economy crashed. And so I had to reinvent myself again. And this time I thought, you know, I've learned so much about fragrance. It's time to, and the trend that was happening in England, not so much in America, was all about bespoke. So for those of you who don't know what bespoke means, it's a British term which means custom made, really made for the individual. And many, you know, royalty members and high net worth individuals in England would have their own clothing made from Burberries and from other high beautiful designers, as well as perfumes. And I thought, well, that would be something great to do in America. So I started creating and developing perfumes that span the entire old factor palette. And when I started it, and I had people at my home in my apartment come to create fragrances, you know, people said, What are you doing? Tap away parties for perfume? And they laughed. And then, of course, that became such a huge trend. Everybody suddenly wanted a bespoke perfume. They didn't want to wear what everybody else wore, the celebrities and the designers. And so I was at the right place at the right time. I then opened up a boutique downtown in Tribeca, New York, called the Cenetarium. And it was an it was a real sort of um basement. It was a real cruddy building downtown, but the basement had so much opportunity. And I fixed it up again, thanks to my mom. I had beautiful art and beautiful music and beautiful furnishings that I had from my homes, just put in there, and it was eclectic, but really lovely. And people like Jamie Foxx found me, and he sent Katie Holmes to me, and then Zendaya came. So suddenly I had all these celebrities and their PR people realizing what a wonderful idea it would be to create bespoke perfumes. So that was fun. It was terrific meeting all these people, and then also doing corporate events and team building events and anniversary parties and holiday parties, all with perfume. And that was great. It was downtown. I was there for 10 years. And then you know what happened after that? The pandemic came. So business shut down. You know, nobody was wearing perfume. Everybody was staying home. So what did I do? I wrote my book called The Power of Perfume. Because I'd written articles and I'd written articles for be for magazines and newspapers and was getting interviewed. And I thought, well, now's the time. There's no business. No one's wearing fragrance. I may as well write about it if they don't wear it. And I did, and something phenomenal happened. Um I the publisher and my PR person got me an interview with NBC and to talk about the book. And the day before the interview, they called me to say, Sue, do you think you can have help somebody who's had a nausea, they cannot smell, have not been able to smell for 15 months. I said, I don't know, but I'll try. And I took this woman who had not been able to smell, she was an ausemic. And, you know, I had 18 fragrances. We have 18 different perfume blends. She was dipping the blotters into the bottle of perfume to try and smell it. And she did one, two, three, up to 14. She couldn't smell a thing. And the 15th or the 14th or 15th one, she suddenly said, Ah, I smell something and it's beautiful. And she started to cough. It was, you know, it was one of the most powerful moments I've ever experienced with perfumery. The fact that she was suddenly able to smell after 15 months of not being able to smell was just phenomenal. It was very emotional. She cried, I cried, the NBC team cried. And that became it, it went viral, the interview went viral. And suddenly people from around the world and around the country contacted me because what happened was during COVID, the symptoms were anosmia and then variations on that theme, parosmia, smell distortion, and then dysgasia, where they had no taste. So suddenly, because people never really learned about fragrance, they didn't understand the magic and the power of fragrance, and people took it for granted. You wake up in the morning, you smell, you have your coffee, and that's it. But suddenly, people, millions of people couldn't smell. It was one of the biggest symptoms of COVID. And I was able to help many, many people. I've helped about 250 people regain their sense of smell. And I've just finished my second book, which is all about how I've helped that. And I'm working with a neuroscientist who is talking about the neuroscientific aspect of an osmia, and I'm talking about the olfactory standpoint. So it's been an amazing journey, and so many bumps and pressures and challenges along the way, but I've managed to always navigate them and overcome them and try and reposition myself with all these challenges.

Beverley Glazer: 26:23

Let me ask you, how does somebody find a personal scent? What do they do?

Sue Phillips: 26:29

Well, so I developed a scent personality quiz. So normally people would go to the counters at, you know, the big stores and they'd try different fragrances and, you know, or they would be recommended by to a fragrance by a friend, or they'd smell something on a friend, and it wouldn't smell good on them because it wasn't for their personality. So because of my long journey and career in this industry, I came up with a scent personality quiz, which is actually in the back of the book, and it's also on my website, Sue Philips.com. And by taking the scent quiz, it really helps people narrow down what they like because there are so many different fragrance families, fresh, floral, fruity, woodsy, spicy, musky, woodsy, ambery. It's like musical notes. You know, are you really going to remember every musical note? There's so many. So the scent quiz really helps people understand their scent persona. If they're outdoors and they love going to the beach or going for walks, they'd probably love a fresh fragrance. If they're a little bit more sophisticated and they're like going to theater or opera, or they love designer clothes, they'd probably like florals. Um, if they're rugged and they like to go on hiking expeditions, they would probably like something woodsy. So there are various fragrance families that really do help reflect your individuality and your personality. And this quiz is amazing. It's I I worked on it, and I worked on it with a psychologist, and it's almost accurate. I mean, it's I would say it's 99% accurate. And I do ask for people's names in the, you know, are you a male, are you a female, what's your name? Because I had a couple of instances where a name could be generic for men or woman. Tony could be a man or a woman, Sean could be a man or a woman. So if I don't know if it's a man or a woman, I would sort of almost, based on the sent results, make it for a man or make it for a woman. Although I do have to say that there are no masculine or feminine ingredients. Roses are not feminine. We think of roses for women, but there's no gender when it comes to ingredients. And woodsy, you think of it for a man, but women can love woodsy in spicy sense too. So, you know, I encourage people, if they really want to explore their own scent persona, they should take the scent quiz online, and it'll be remarkable to see what they come up with.

Beverley Glazer: 29:06

And that's no, that's a great idea. What's one final message, Sue? What could you leave our listeners with?

Sue Phillips: 29:14

Never underestimate the power of scent. Even if you go to the stores and you get overwhelmed with all the choices, you know, fragrance is a beautiful, wonderful gift that we have been given. And our sense of smell is our most powerful sense. It connects memory, emotion, and taste and smell. And I always love to say to people, you know, perfume is the signature of your soul. And it can bring back memories, it can enhance memories, it can make you think of somebody that you haven't thought of for years. It can bring back memories of an old lover or a mother or father or grandparent or newborn baby. And, you know, when people lost their sense of smell during COVID, they were miserable, they were just very heart sick, they were depressed, they couldn't smell, they couldn't taste, they couldn't enjoy life, they couldn't enjoy going to events because everything at the event had food and they couldn't smell or they couldn't taste, so it became a real problem. So I always say to people, honor your sense of smell. Thank you. And do stop and smell the roses.

Beverley Glazer: 30:25

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Sue. Thank you, Beverly. Sue Phillips is an internationally renowned fragrance expert, an entrepreneur, and one of the most celebrated women in the fragrance industry. Over the course of 35 years, she has elevated fragrance from a luxury product to a personal art form and a tool for healing. She is the creator of fragrances for Tiffany, Burberry, and Diane von Furstenberg, and that's just a few, and the founder of Centerprises, where she crafts perfumes for celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, thousands of people looking for their own signature scent. And during COVID, she's helped over 250 people regain their sense of smell. Here are a few takeaways from this episode. Smell is the only sense that's directly connected to the emotions in your brain. Fragrance that can unlock memory, confidence, and even healing. And the right fragrance can affirm who you are and who you are becoming. If you relate to this episode, here are some actions that you can do right now. Inhale a scent that you love and notice how good you feel. Identify which odors calm you, energize you, and ground you. And refresh your environment with a scent that use a diffuser, an essential oil, or a pleasant spray in a room where you spend your most time. For similar episodes on changing your mood quickly, check out episodes 145 and 154 of Aging with Purpose and Passion and Women in the Middle podcast, hosted by life coach Susie Rosenstein, helps women in midlife and beyond to navigate change, set goals, and find happiness. That link is also in the show notes. And so, Sue, where can people find you and where can they buy your book and learn more about you? Please share your links.

Sue Phillips: 32:36

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. So uh I'm on Instagram, I have sentfully Sue. I have full Instagram, Sentfully Sue, the real Sue Phillips, Sue Phillips Fragrance, and Centerprises. It's a long story why I have so many. But if you also Google Sue Philips Fragrance, I'll come up. I'm on LinkedIn, X, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, everywhere. Um, and if you if you just Google Sue or even go to ChatGPT, um, who is Sue Philips Fragrance? And I'll pop up. It's it's amazing. I love this whole AI thing because I I I ask clients, where do you find me? And they tell me other Google and now ChatGPT. So thank you. Thank you to the AI gods.

Beverley Glazer: 33:26

And if you didn't catch any of that, and I highly doubt that, you must have caught at least one. You can also find it on reinventimpossible.com because that's my site too. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living a life that you truly love? Get my free guide to reboot your confidence, and that's in the show notes. You can connect with me, Beverley Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook. That's Women Over50 Rock. And thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe and help us spread the word by dropping a review, sending this out to a friend, and remember, you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Announcer: 34:23

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.