ACT IV After leaving Tiffany to have her baby girl, Sue wished to take charge of her work schedule and clients and opened her own business befittingly called Scenterprises, Inc. which captured the essence of her passion for fragrance. Here, she created fragrances for Trish McEvoy, Burberry, AVON, Diane Von Furstenberg and Lancaster and in doing so, made Scenterprises into a global consulting company.
ACT V For most people, reaching the pinnacle of an entrepreneurial career as a world-renowned consultant would be good enough, but as a visionary Sue realized seven years ago that fragrances had a different future and she wanted to be leading the pack. She noticed consumers were getting tired of having to choose premade perfume types or a celebrity’s choice of perfume that may or may not fit into their personality and scent preference. So Sue capitalized on an evolving future of customized scents for everyone, perfumes that people could create themselves—bespoke fragrances, as Sue calls it. As the world exploded into customized industries from vacations to interior design, Sue awakened her industry to the beginning of tailored perfumes with her picturesque haven of a perfumery called Scentarium located in Downtown Manhattan. The shop hypnotizes the soul with its charm and beauty, enrapturing all the senses with glorious scents, music and exquisite paintings her mother created for her as one of the most talented artists in South Africa. Scentarium clients range from celebrities (Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes are fans) to six-year-old girls to 80-year-old birthday parties. Also in the mix are Fortune 500 companies who request team building conferences and celebratory events like AOL, Bulgari, COTY and hundreds of other corporations who have hired her to set up fragrance bars at their events for their employees to experience the art of custom perfume creation.
ACT VI Besides creating customized perfumes for the world privately and corporately, Sue is an adjunct professor at LIM College, after five years of teaching at FIT, and not surprisingly, is working on her line of fragrance called the Sue Phillips House of Fragrance Collection. She was also nominated as the Fragrance/Entrepreneur 2016 for Fashion Group International, and also 2016 Woman of the Year for T.J. Martell Foundation. Yes, Sue is also philanthropic. The Alzheimer’s Foundation is close to Sue’s heart, and she is dedicated to raising funds for it, inspired by her mother having had the disease. She has held numerous fund-raising events nationwide for the Foundation, and Sue believes that since fragrance and memory are so intertwined, there could be a cure involving scents with the correlation.
THE FINALE
Sue with Katie Holmes
Looking back Sue exclaims “If you had told me that growing up in South Africa I would land up being in NYC singing, dancing and working in the cosmetic industry then eventually developing a fragrance for Tiffany, I would have said you’re crazy!” I have a feeling the curtain is not even close to coming down yet on Sue’s ventures. • Judy Goss is currently the radio show host of What Women Want with over 500,000 downloads and is a published author of St. Martin’s Press. She is also an entrepreneur who founded the nationally acclaimed networking organization Over 40 Females® with its 20 chapters from New York to California. Judy is also a freelance journalist who interviews people about her favorite topic; their personal stories and what inspired them to be who they are today. NOVEMBER 2016 | NEW YORK LIFESTYLES MAGAZINE | 93