Sarah Horowitz-Thran
About Sarah
Sarah Horowitz-Thran has been creating perfume for over 30 years, and is known as one of the Pioneers of Indie Perfumery. Her fragrances are worn and loved by many, including celebrities, stylists and media personalities, and have been seen on the shelves of world class retailers such as Barneys New York, Anthropologie, Fred Segal and Nordstrom.
Sarah began designing custom fragrances in the late 1980’s as a freshman at Emerson College. A theater major, she stumbled upon part-time work at an off-beat, apothecary- style perfumery called Essence on Boston’s famed Newbury Street, which specialized in creating custom fragrances for its clientele. Fueled by an intuitive knack for perfumery and the conviction that fragrance was a vehicle for self-expression, Sarah would work one-on- one with clients for hours at a time to design their perfect customized scent. She called this process The Fragrance Journey, which would become the heart and soul of her business - now commanding upwards of $1000 for a custom perfume. After nearly four years apprenticing at Essence, Sarah, with help from her family, purchased the store where she continued to fine-tune her craft and build a reputation as an accomplished and imaginative nose. In 1994, she sold her stake, packed up her perfume oils and moved to Los Angeles. She founded Creative Scentualization upon arrival in LA, which later gave birth to Sarah Horowitz Parfums.
Sarah spent the next several years toting her fragrance organ (a collection of more than 100 fragrance oils housed in a wooden case) around the beaches of Malibu and Los Angeles conducting Fragrance Journeys and designing custom fragrances for clients. Soon, she was attracting a slow-but-steady underground following of discerning women with varied professional backgrounds. Sarah’s intuitive, non-formulaic approach to fragrance development makes her sought after both by individuals as well as niche and emerging brands which tap Sarah Horowitz Parfums to create both statement-making perfumes and home fragrances that are truly one-of-a-kind. Above all, the heart and soul of SHP has always been customization- distilling the essence of who you are and what you love into a bottle.
Sarah Horowitz Parfums is now an established CA-based niche fragrance house credited with the creation of Sarah’s own lines, SHP Evolution, the Perfect Perfumes, What Comes From Within and the Perfumer's Palette and as well as a number of blockbuster private label and custom fragrances that have attracted a cult following among fashion industry insiders and celebrities across the US. In 2017 SHP opened a small run, high end filling and manufacturing arm focusing on production servicing the ever growing Indie fragrance community which she helped build.
Today, along with running her business and creating fragrances, she is a Professor at FIDM College in downtown LA. She splits her time among her passions - her love of fragrance, and her love of family - as her primary focus is her husband, Greg Thran, and their two daughters, Jessica and Gianna.
To learn more about Sarah, we invite you to explore her website.