Story and photos by Mary Sheely
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
A guy walks into an empty storefront and gets asked about perfume.
It sounds like a joke, but it’s actually what happens when Mike Ross stops to ask what new business is going in at 4536 California SW (map) in The Junction.
“How do you feel about perfume?” he’s asked.
“I don’t,” is his reply.
Christen Cottam is out to change that.
This April, she’ll be opening a perfumery, Knows Perfume, in that space (formerly home to Westside Alterations).
But abandon any preconceived notions of what her store might be like. For starters, Cottam herself is witty, down-to-earth, with flame-red hair and a unique credential – she recently retired from Tacoma roller-derby team Dockyard Derby Dames, where she competed with the handle Flirtation Device. More importantly, she won’t be selling the kind of perfume you can find at your local Sephora or Nordstrom — or anywhere else in town, either.
“It’s my job to help you find your Holy Grail of scent,” says Cottam, whose store tagline is “purveyor of uncommon scents.”
“I would hear friends say, ‘I hate perfume’ or ‘I get a headache’ or ‘It never smells good on me,’” she says. “And I just discovered that I have a knack for helping them find something.”
It’s that knack that she plans to put to work for her customers.
“When somebody says, ‘Oh, I really like the smell of violet,’ I say, ‘Do you like a more green violet or a more earthy violet? Or a more candy violet?’” Cottam says.
“It can be specific like ‘fresh blooming roses’ or vague like ‘I love the smell of concrete after rain.’ Then I’ll pull things to try.”
She’ll also make it easier for customers to find scents they like by posting perfume reviews — much like the ratings found in a wine store. Cottam realized that wine connoisseurs weren’t so very different from “perfume geeks” like herself during the 10 years she spent in biotech sales in San Francisco.
“I started to look at perfume almost like I looked at wine,” she says. “‘What are the characteristics of perfumes I like? What do they have in common? Oh, a certain perfume note! Oh, I like a lot of perfumes with amber in them.’”
She began devoting a good part of her vacation time to learning more.
“There’s a group that meets twice a year in New York called Sniffapalooza,” she says. “You spend one day uptown where you’re at Bergdorf, Barneys, Henri Bendel. The second day, you’re in SOHO, down in the Village, and you visit smaller perfume shops. They know you’re coming—they have samples and a lot of times they have speakers who have created the perfumes. You end up being so enthusiastic about it. I kept saying, ‘I would love to open my own store. I would love to open my own store. And Seattle doesn’t have anything like this!’”
Cottam moved to Seattle just over four years ago.
“I freaked over West Seattle!” she says. “I ended up at looking down at the city on Alki and said ‘Oh, this is a great neighborhood.’ Ever since I moved here, it has been great; that hasn’t changed.”
It’s no surprise that she’s thrilled to be opening a business here.
“How cool it is that I can be a part of my community?” she says. “One of the things I was so excited about the store is I want to do the Art Walk. One of my favorite perfume blogs was saying that perfume is the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world, and I was like, ‘That is so true!’ I kept coming back to these themes of art, art, art and community, community, community, so it’s cool that I ended up with a space right where it is.”
She plans to host monthly events where people can learn a little more about a certain scent, get practical advice like how to make a perfume last, and take home a free sample pack.
“There’s so much to learn and it’s fun,” she says.
At the moment, Knows Perfume is made up of little but subflooring and drywall. But Cottam shares a “mood board” of planned decor including a custom painting by local artist Kerry Smith. She’s most excited about the feeling of openness that was created when her contractor, Luther Chatel, removed a dropped ceiling. Aside from visual appeal, air circulation is critical to a store like Cottam’s.
“I want it to be a place where it doesn’t smell when people walk in the door,” she says. “You walk into some of those places and it’s like a full assault!”
Instead, patrons will experience the scents when they try them on personally. An elegant bar will be built toward the back of the store where visitors can talk to Cottam about their likes and dislikes at their leisure. Like Cottam herself, the experience will be a friendly one.
“I want it to feel like it isn’t intimidating or overwhelming,” she says. “My hope is, you come in and sit down at the bar and you start talking — what do you love the smell of, what do you hate the smell of, what smells remind you of something.”
She later elaborates on this idea, via e-mail.
“What I love most about scent is, much like wine, its subjective nature,” she writes. “The combination of personal preference and an individual’s chemistry make scent both elusive and magical. As an example, I have a great love of white florals like gardenia and tuberose, but they don’t work at all on my skin. Someone else might not like the smell of gardenia, yet it blooms and smells lovely on her skin. Obviously, the ideal combination is both loving a scent and having it smell wonderful on your own skin.”
Cottam will focus on niche lines of perfume that she says are more “dedicated to the art of perfumery.”
She spreads out several perfume samples and begins a rapid-fire description of bottles and packaging, starting with something called Lemon Cowboy.
“This one is a leather scent that I’m trying right now, from an LA company — they’re called Smell Bent,” she says. “This one is called Violet Tendencies—l love the name!”
Next is a fuzzy, book-shaped box. “Alessandro by Mazzolari — I love that it comes in a little velvety book,” she says.
She pulls out another bottle. “My friend loves this one because it smells like hay and grasses.”
Next is a bottle with a label depicting with a woman riding a tiger, Dzing! by L’Artisan Parfumeur. “This smells like the circus!” Cottam says. (Lest you think that sounds less than appealing, the company describes it as a combination of “saddle leather, sawdust from the ring, and the caramelized smell of candy.”)
Cottam is well-versed in unexpected scents.
“One of my friends comes over and says, ‘Make me smell like a library,’” she says. “I have one that smells like library books.”
Her favorite scent, in fact, isn’t from a perfume at all. It’s from her grandfather.
“The smell of pipe tobacco,” she says. “As an adult, I love tobacco scents and I love tobacco in a perfume, and it’s because it reminds me of my grandpa.”
Cottam’s grandfather plays a larger part in her store than he may have known.
“His 90th birthday was in October and the whole family flew out to see him,” Cottam recounts. “And he died the following Tuesday. And what he left to me has allowed me to do this.
“Of course, I’d take him back in a heartbeat,” she says. “I’ll have a picture of him in my store. He was so neat. He smoked a pipe, he worked on motorcycles, he was the best man in my brother’s wedding. He liked dogs and said, ‘Go get yourself a mutt because they’re like Hondas — they’re low maintenance and they’ll last forever.’”
Though Cottam is now able to work on her business full-time, she’s starting out small. Initially, she’ll be the only employee. She’s realistic about the challenges that come with starting a new business. She’s optimistic, too.
“I must have passed that open space for a month or two before I even got the nerve to call,” she says of her storefront. “Something hit me when I started to look around and say, you know, small biz owners are no different than I am. I felt like if I had been brave enough or committed enough to do marathons and rock climbing and roller derby, then clearly I had the mental fortitude to do something brave and leap and do my business.
“I’ve had to be really selective so that [the scents she’ll sell] are sophisticated and well done but also have some lasting power to them,” she says. “Perfume’s an indulgence, and you’re spending money that could be for cat litter or your electric bill. So at least buy something that’s going to stick with you!”
Then she starts laughing when it’s pointed out that she just mentioned cat litter in the same breath as perfume. Like we said — down to earth.
BONUS – ADVICE AND INSIGHT! from Christen Cottam:
How to choose the right scent:
Smelling a bottle or spraying a scent on a tester strip will give you a rough idea of a scent’s character, but you really do need to wear it on your skin to see how it melds with your own chemistry.
The first notes, or top notes, of a fragrance usually dissipate within several minutes of being sprayed due to their low molecular weight. The middle and base notes of a fragrance take 10 to 30 minutes to develop on the skin, and this is when you can truly get an idea if a scent is something you’ll love.
Why some perfumes enter the room before the person wearing them does:
One can become desensitized to a scent over time; this is why many people tend to wear too much fragrance. They assume their bottle of perfume has grown weaker over time, so they apply it more liberally. They can’t really smell it. Unfortunately, the rest of us can!
The two most common complaints I hear about perfume:
That perfume is too strong, or people are allergic to it. Both of these complaints can often be remedied by choosing the right perfume and by not overdoing the application. People who have been diagnosed with perfume allergies can occasionally find a scent that is hypoallergenic.
The best way to apply scent:
It’s really a matter of personal preference.
Spraying once into the air in front of you and then walking through the mist allows for a fine, even application, but also leaves scent on your clothing and in your home.
Fragrance can be applied lightly to pulse points such as the wrists, the neck, or the back of the knees. I try not to spray more than two spritzes of any scent to keep it from being overpowering. If a scent is particularly strong, I decant some into a small bottle with a rollerball applicator—this allows greater control over how much fragrance is applied.
My current favorite scents:
Rock Crystal by Olivier Durbano is a great incense scent. Havana Vanilla by L’Artisan is a wonderful vanilla and tobacco. Cuir d’Iris by Parfumerie Generale smells like iris and leather book covers. Lann’Ael by Lostmarch is a perennial favorite; it never ceases to delight me that this tiny perfume maker from Brittany has captured the smell of a bowl of Froot Loops cereal and somehow made it elegant and lovely.
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