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Women.com presents

Paula Goldstein, owner of Desana
Starting Your Own Business

August 17, 1999

Paula Goldstein, owner of Desana, a fragrance boutique in Boston, is with us today to talk about how she got her start in the perfume business.

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HomeArtsLive: Good afternoon, and welcome to our on-line chat with entrepreneur Paula Goldstein, owner of Desana, a fragrance boutique in Boston. Drawing from 150 natural oils from around the globe, Paula is able to create scents anew, and even reconstruct perfumes from old atomizers. The custom-made scents are used in perfumes, colognes, shampoos, and conditioners. Welcome Paula!

Paula Goldstein: Welcome everyone, I'm very glad to be here. Let's take some questions.

Radgrrrl: What's the difference between your perfumes and regular perfumes that you might buy at the department store? Do you mix them differently, or have different ingredients?

Paula Goldstein: We do mix them differently. And the primary difference, aside from having something custom-made for you, is that we don't use the 93 percent alcohol and chemicals that most commercial fragrances have. The product is much more natural and pure.

Lovescents: Do you have any 'signature' fragrances on the market?

Paula Goldstein: We currently only wholesale our houseblends to a few local businesses. We're thinking of expanding into that arena, but we've had such remarkable success with custom blending that it is what we've been focusing on.

Curious1: What kind of training did you need to become a perfumer?

Paula Goldstein: I apprenticed at a perfumery in Boston while I was in college. That was ten years ago. After my apprenticeship was over and I became more official as a perfumer, the next ten years were a lot of trial, error, and experimenting. I truly believe that perfuming is 50 percent technical and 50 percent intuition.

EZguest453: Did you always aspire to go into this line of work or did you decide on a whim?

Paula Goldstein: It was decided on a whim. I needed a summer job one year while I was in college and the owner of the perfumery where I apprenticed, sort of non-chalantly asked me if I would like to work for him and I accepted. But once I began perfuming, I knew that that was it!

Goodscents: Do you or members of your staff travel to exotic locales to bring home new oils, or do you have distributors you work with who bring them to your attention?

Paula Goldstein: We currently buy all of our oils through importers, but we're planning to visit the indigenous countries that supply our oils and buy from them directly.

Explorer: What kind of advice do you have for would-be entrepreneurs?

Paula Goldstein: I think the most crucial piece of advice that I can offer is to keep your faith intact and your vision pure. Because you'll come up against a lot of obstacles. But if those two things are the force behind you, you will find a way to succeed.

Athomemom: What fragrances are you ask to re-create most?

Paula Goldstein: It really varies. But typically something that is attached to a very specific memory. For example, if it smells like their grandmother or they wore it when they were a girl. Mostly scents that are very strongly attached to someone's nostalgia.

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