Harry Slatkin knows home fragrance—he pioneered the category to help it become the $29.3 billion industry that it is today. Co-founding Slatkin + Co. with his wife Laura, he has created collections for over 100 brands, including luxury names like Vera Wang and Christian Dior. His celebrity clientele includes icons like Elton John and Princess Diana.
However, he isn't only reserving his scent talents for the elites: offering a premium experience at a masstige price is another core component of Slatkin’s industry mission. As the former President of Home for Limited Brands following Slatkin + Co.’s sale to the company in 2005, overseeing all home fragrance development for Bath & Body Works, he grew the business to over $1 billion in five and a half years.
Today under the Slatkin + Co. umbrella there sits HomeWorx, launched in 2017 and sold at retailers like QVC (where it originally launched), Ulta Beauty, and Nordstrom; ScentWorx (a home fragrance and bath and bodycare line sold exclusively at Kohl’s); Club 92 (a Dollar General exclusive line); Aroma Home (sold exclusively at Home Depot); and Dwell212 (a fragrance and bodycare aromatherapy-based line for young metropolites).
When it comes to retail expansions, Slatkin goes big and bold. Club 92 debuted at 19,000 stores nationwide. In Q1 2024 alone, Slatkin + Co. entered 28,000 new doors, focusing on mass retailers like CVS. With a 30% year-over-year growth, the company’s revenue is now in the nine-figure range.
As a recipient of the American Society of Perfumers’ Living Legends Award, recognition as a nose by the Perfumers’ Association, and with Laura (also founder of NEST Fragrances) receiving the Fragrance Foundation’s Game Changer Award in 2019, Slatkin’s professional pedigree certainly speaks for itself.
But digging beyond these impressive numbers, one finds that he is a hardworking, driven, and enthusiastic businessman whose success isn’t the result of pure luck but a perpetually curious mind that is willing to take a chance.
Slatkin’s own experience of home fragrance began at age 13. After his father passed away, he was in charge of lighting the candles when his mother was entertaining guests—Rigaud candles, imported from France and popularized by Diana Vreeland, as well as Floris lamp ring diffusers, to be specific.
At 15, he founded his first company, a table and bed linen company. Martha Stewart publishing her Entertaining book that same year was nothing short of a revelation for the young entrepreneur. “All of a sudden it took hors d'oeuvres … to an everyday experience; not just something you had to do if you were catering your event or doing something special. What that did for me in my world is I pushed so that you lit a candle when you came home for yourself to relax after the day, on the weekend,” he says. “It became something that was not just an upper-level moment to use; it was something to use all the time. You don't have to live on Park Avenue to have a scented candle. Now, you've got all these choices at every level.”
With a wider zeitgeist shift at play, the market was primed for a game-changing entrant. But it would take Slatkin meeting his wife Laura to create the business that overhauled the home fragrance category.
The Journey from Wall Street to Saks Fifth Avenue
Harry and Laura (who met co-chairing a charity fundraiser) were both working on Wall Street at investment bank Bear Stearns before deciding to set up Slatkin + Co. in 1992. At the time, Harry’s brother, an interior designer, was making clients their own home fragrance as a little gift upon completing a project. When the interest grew, he handed the reins over to the duo.
They soon gained a loyal following. Saks Fifth Avenue launched the brand on their couture floor, with other notable retailers worldwide like Harrods, Bergdorf Goodman, Villa Moda, and Joyce following suit. Slatkin + Co. built buzz around treating home fragrance like a fine fragrance creation, incorporating blends with top, heart, and base notes, as well as high-quality essential oils, produced in partnership with master perfumers at houses like Mane, Givaudan, and Firmenich.
What is the exact recipe for a best-selling candle creation? “Having the know-how, the authority, and the care in each product. When I sit down to do a fragrance, I don't do statistics. When I create the fragrances with these perfumers, it's about passion, and it's about telling a story,” Slatkin explains.
Invested in the entire product experience from first lighting to last extinguishing, he helped create lead-free, cotton wicks, which are ozone-friendly and don’t result in black soot upon burning. He also assisted in engineering the wick clip, which ensures an additional safety factor by keeping wicks in place and preventing overheating. Every candle creation takes six to nine months to complete, beginning with creating the fragrance with perfumers, and smelling it in his wax formula (a proprietary, food-grade paraffin base) before trialing it for the first time to assess the scent. After that, the wick is finalized with one last burn before the product goes into preproduction.
Slatkin is willing to go to any lengths for a great product, including crossing international borders. He recalls one particular adventure with Michel Mane, President at Mane, which involved getting on a helicopter ride to smell the lavender fields in Provence at their peak bloom, high up on a seaside cliff. Despite his fear of flying, Slatkin made it to the destination. “You've got that amazing wind and sea salt air inside the lavender fields, which go on for acres and acres. Then behind it are the white lavender fields. I ended up buying the whole lavender field while I was there because we use it in our product. I'm in different levels of where I distribute my product. I learned that I was in luxury, and then I went to masstige through Bath & Body Works. I want to give everybody at every level an experience that they wouldn't get from just a candle,” he explains.
Dissecting his strategy in the mass channel, Slatkin notes, “The look of the vessel is important, but I'm all about the scent.” For him, home fragrance offers an avenue into an aspirational world. “The world has gotten so savvy, between the Kardashians that everyone watches and sees what they use in the interior of their homes, to the whole fashion world changing during Dallas and Dynasty. We could see families fighting, but wearing Gucci sunglasses and drinking bottled water out of crystal glasses,” he states. “It gave a reality to the fact that we could live a piece of that lifestyle. That's what I want to do. I want to give a piece of lifestyle to each person. I hope, through fragrance and the look of the product, I raise the bar for them.”
Passion and an Entrepreneurial Spirit as the Keys to Success
Slatkin isn't just raising the bar for others, but also himself. When it came to the sale of Slatkin + Co. to Limited Brands, he brought his fearless mindset to a more corporate environment. “I'm an entrepreneur, so I make decisions quickly. The buck stops here and we move on. When I got to Bath & Body Works, I was sitting in rooms with 60 people in them, and we'd leave a boardroom with no one landing a plane. I get it; it's big money that you're talking about,” he explains. Frustrated by the lack of movement, he started having one-on-one meetings with Les Wexner, founder of Limited Brands, every ten days.
During one of his conversations with Wexner, determined to get the plane landed, Slatkin decided to set up shop in the basement of Bath & Body Works' Broadway offices. “It became the most coveted space in the building. My office was huge because no one cared for it when it was a basement, and my team was empowered to do what we wanted to do,” he says. Part of that empowerment was being given free rein on 20 test stores. “That entrepreneurial spirit is why I grew the business so fast that I ended up opening the investors conference for Limited Brands because it's the largest home fragrance brand in the world now at $2.3 billion. That idea of how a company runs is why I'm a serial entrepreneur. I like making decisions. I like to empower my group to make decisions,” he adds.
As for the entrepreneurs that inspire him, Slatkin has an ever-growing list. Reading books on other figures like Estée Lauder, Helena Rubinstein, and Charles Revson provided him with tools and inspiration. “I wanted to know what was in their psyche. All of that knowledge has driven me and still excites me. That's why I love reading biographies or autobiographies because it's the psyche and that passion of someone else that I learn from, whether it's someone in Hollywood or Steve Jobs. I'm a bastardization of all the wonderful people I've met that have been an influence on me: Ace Weinberg at Bear Stearns; my best friend, Tommy Hilfiger; and Ralph Lauren. These are genius people to learn from,” he explains. “I'm not an inventor, I reinvent. Taking pieces of all of them and making them part of my persona and being excited about what I do is what drives me every day.”
When asked about his advice to other aspiring entrepreneurs, Slatkin states, “If you don't have the passion, then don't do it.” Passion helped to drive him forward in even the most challenging times. When growing Slatkin + Co. with a very tight budget, he recalls his wife waking up every morning to call the 1-800 number of their bank to make sure the checks had cleared. “We have had so many ups and downs. If you let those downs stop you, you're never going to get back up. Go with them. Learn from them,” he explains.
Tapping into the Power of Home Shopping
One thing Slatkin has certainly learned during his time in the business is how to build a brand, be it Bath & Body Works or HomeWorx, through home shopping platforms. His awareness of the channel began at age 15. “Barry Diller had just started HSN. I was always fascinated by it, and I was watching it one day, and there was a wooden reindeer that when you lifted its tail, it pooped peanut M&Ms. Back then, they used to list how many they sold, and it was 38,000. It's so funny too because three years ago my team found one and gave it to me as a gift for Christmas. A pooping reindeer,” he laughs. “But I was fascinated that you could reach people in their home and sell to them.”
When he arrived at Bath & Body Works, growing the business's revenue from $100 million to $300 million, he knew exactly where to go to spread the message. “I had to tell the consumer that we've improved it all. Once I did that, not only was our first show the fastest sellout of any category they had ever done on QVC—47 minutes—but it was so powerful that we would put signs up with 'As Seen or Sold Out On QVC’ instore,” he recalls.
After getting Bath & Body Works' numbers to $1 billion, he stepped down as President of Home, but continued to consult the company for two years. He stopped doing QVC and as he had a noncompete, bought the fashion brand Belstaff with Hilfiger, deciding to commit the next three years of his life to the fashion world. “That was the most exhausting three years of my life. It was worldwide, and I was traveling so much. I decided to retire again. My wife didn't like that. She says I spent too much money and didn't want me idle,” he recalls. During a mutual lunch with Doug Howe, Chief Merchandising Officer at QVC (who Slatkin describes as family), he was offered a chance to return to the shopping channel. That following Monday morning, he woke up to a proposal, and thus the entrepreneur was back in business. Today HomeWorx is the fastest growing brand in home and number one fragrance brand on QVC.
“It's a growing business; they've embraced who their customer is. But I find it actually helps all my other outlets because people become so familiar with it. I go on air, let's just say it's prime time, 8,9, 10 o'clock at night. I've got an average of three to five million women during my hour time tuning in and out,” he explains. “I do it for the sales because now they've become substantial, and it’s a great infomercial. I adore QVC and they're the nicest people; they treat your brand well. It's been great for all the things I've had to do in my life.”
In the early days of Slatkin + Co., Oprah Winfrey also gave the company a platform on her Christmas show. “What I loved about Oprah, the reason we were on is that she loved the product. Her customer is really a masstige customer; it plays to everybody. It's a privilege to be able to not only design for those customers, but I love meeting them. They're so nice. They come up to me on the street and ask for a picture or call in on QVC. It gives me such great pride to know that they love the product,” he says.
Autism Activism
Slatkin isn’t just passionate about elevating lives through scent, but creating change on an even larger scale. The Slatkins co-founded NEXT for AUTISM with Ilene Lainer in 2003, underpinned by their own experience of having an autistic son.
When he was diagnosed at 18 months old, determined to get their son the best evaluation possible (at Yale), they were shocked to realize there was a four-year waiting list. If it was this difficult to access the service, how challenging must it be for those with less economic and financial resources? The Slatkins were determined to find a solution.
“Back then, it wasn't even called autism. It was called PDDNOS (Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). We went out looking, and there wasn't a lot of opportunity to help my son. That's all we cared about back then was helping my son, and so we sponsored our first project,” he recalls. That project was a symposium with Columbia University, New York University, and Cornell University, with Nobel Prize-winning brain specialists invited from around the world.
Struggling to find a school in NYC to accommodate their son, together they opened the first charter school for mental health in the state of New York, with support from Hilary Clinton and Merryl H. Tisch, former Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents. It was called the New York Center for Autism (NYCA), now known as the NYC Autism Charter School, with one location in Brooklyn and another in Harlem. They also built the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain with New York University, Cornell University, and Columbia University. Located near New York-Presbyterian Hospital, it accepts all insurances. To better equip public school teachers with the skills to teach autistic children, they funded a training program at Hunter College. They also launched a limited edition HomeWorx Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes 4-Wick Candle (the scent inspired by their son’s favorite breakfast dish) with 5% of the purchase price being donated to NEXT for AUTISM. Since its inception, the organization has raised over $54 million. The Slatkins are also founding members of Autism Speaks. In the last eight years, they have extended their philanthropy efforts to assist all adults with special needs.
“I don't want other people to have to go through the difficulty of finding resources or ways of helping their child. It's not that we have to cure autism. We have to figure out autism,” he states. Part of that figuring out has been pulling the experts on board—like meeting the NIH Director, and James Watson, co founder of the Human Genome Project. Slatkin has also consulted with the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner Richard Axel who, together with Linda Buck who made substantial discoveries around decoding the olfactive system—the results of which have huge implications in the use of scent to cure illness.
“My wife and I said, ‘We have to help the families now.’ It's great to go out there and fight. When we started, not one state had insurance reimbursement to take care of a family. Now in the US, every state has insurance reimbursement. No family is not going to get help for what they need for autism,” Slatkin states.
Exploring New Avenues at Mass
Following his return to the home fragrance world after a fashion hiatus, Slatkin was passionate about finding new ways to reach his consumer. Ken Langone, the financier behind Home Depot, has a foundation called Ken’s Kids, which helps children with special needs. Slatkin wanted to do a candle with them for Home Depot. But because Langone kept these two worlds separate, the plan didn’t go ahead. Instead Slatkin met with Home Depot directly and began exploring the opportunity to enter their stores with a candle range. “I said to myself, wait a minute, you've got a customer coming in to redecorate their home. Why wouldn't they want to take care of that in the most instant way with a scented candle,” he says. "It just started serendipitously happening that way. Then I got to the part where I said, “if you're already working this hard and building the team, why not go for it?”
“I started looking at the arena and got mad because when I was at Bath & Body Works, raising the bar, I was pushing others to raise the bar, but when I stepped down, all of a sudden, everyone let it go. It was talking back down to a consumer,” he states. “Everyone was worried so much about the price that they weren't worrying about the quality, the sensibility, the scents. Where has it evolved to? There was no newness, nothing. That's when I actually started looking at places and going after them, saying no, and they're responding. That’s why CVS, Walmart, all these wonderful places are responding to the quality.”
HomeWorx also soon expanded into bath and body products. Speaking on the category expansion Slatkin notes, “I see a void in the quality of the scent and the product that you put on. For me, I'm about the essential oils and I'm not compromising. I don't care what price it is. I'm not compromising just because the price of the consumer is less than. I don't consider anyone less than."
Prestige home fragrance was a huge category of growth, with a CAGR of 10.1% until 2030, but high-end candles are not in the budgetary realms of every consumer. Offering luxury scents at a mass market price is a hugely untapped opportunity, as supermarkets and hypermarkets constituted 39.5% of the global market revenue share in 2023.
“I get luxury, and there's a customer that wants that moment, but there's also another customer in great need of being treated that way. That's the void that I wanted to fill,” he explains. He’s not afraid to put himself in the middle of the action to gain real-time consumer insights. “I like standing in a store and watching a customer,” he says. “When I see them put something back, I always then jump out of behind the pillar saying, ‘Why'd you put it back?’ The answer always is, it wasn't what I thought when I opened it up, or the sensibility of it was not there for that price.”
Slatkin sees the biggest challenges in the mass retail market as finding a space that believes in the company from the get-go, “without having to perform to a space number that they need to. In black and white, the brands that are changing the world, yes we have to do the numbers, but we know that's not going to happen from day one. That is why the Walmart’s and now the CVS’s—because they have a new leader overseeing all of beauty—those places are actually progressing and doing well. It's the ones that don't want to take a chance, that's the challenge.”
He knows how to tap into the power of collaborators, be they Dollar General or Dior, and spot an untapped opportunity. “I don't want to push product on someone just to push product. I see a void, and I want to fill that hole and make a change. I did it. I've built the number one luxury fragrance brand and pioneered the industry. I want to do that wherever I go. I don't want to just be another candle on a show,” he remarks. Looking at the home fragrance empire Slatkin has built, with bodycare presenting another stage of his company’s evolution, it’s exciting to see where he will turn his creative efforts to next. Either way, whether his shopper is at Home Depot or browsing the TV channels, the Slatkin + Co. creation will be hard to miss.
