Meet The Disruptors: Terry Carter of Travertine Spa Collection On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Motivation — I love perfumery. I want to get up every day and make beautiful things.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Terry Carter.
Terry is the Chief Perfumer and Founder of the Travertine Spa Collection. Terry brings 30+ years of experience and extensive perspective to the table and is well known for his bold and out the box approaches that succeed. He is an accomplished legal scholar, businessman and a Paris-trained perfumer. He custom formulates fragrance and body care products for the Four Seasons and collaborates with Ritz Carlton properties.He blends bespoke perfumes for celebrities but rarely name drops. Terry’s branded product received the distinction of a Forbes travel product of the year. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Medium and as a Master Perfumer in HuffPost. Travertine products have been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, BRAVO, FOX, EXTRA and NPR.
Terry speaks English, French and Japanese.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My work in corporate America was very logical. I started making soaps and lotions as a creative outlet. I made gifts for friends. I started selling to local boutiques. Over time, I built a line of premium body and skin care products and changed careers. Fragrance was a natural extension of the product line. I built upon my aromatherapy skills and developed an acumen in fine fragrance. I solidified this knowledge by studying advanced perfumery composition at ISIPCA, the acclaimed fragrance school in Versailles, just outside of Paris.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I am disrupting the concept of fragrance. I am making the olfactory experience an expected branding category. To wit, I am working to expand the branding model to include fragrance as a necessary component not an accessory. Olfactive branding is as necessary a component to marketing as is logo, color, font, imagery, social media campaigns and marketing copy. When a branding team is assembled, fragrance (made by a scent designer) must be a part of any successful branding strategy at the outset.
Companies are looking for new ways to brand and market themselves. They completely overlook scent. Our sense of smell is one of our strongest senses, yet it is almost ignored in branding and marketing. Hotels need a signature scent. Restaurants need a signature scent. Athletic clubs need a signature scent.
Do you remember how nostalgic it feels to smell foods that you loved in your childhood? What if you could remember the carefree feeling of that amazing vacation by having the resort fragrance in your home? I’m not talking about the generic lavender and cedar scents from inexpensive toiletries. Rather, something unique to the location that captures the spirit, history and essence of the destination.
As a perfumer, I have the ability to translate these concepts into unique olfactive expressions. Clients seek me out because I am not generic and I bring a global perspective to my craft.
For one luxury client, I spent time at the resort, studied the local history, gathered leaves, greenery, flowers and herbs indigenous to the location. This harvest is combined with the story the client wants to tell. The emotions they want to evoke and what they want to communicate to the client. This is how fragrance makes a branding strategy complete.
For another client, a tech company in San Francisco, I spent time with their staff, attended an all-hands meeting, learned their inside jokes, noted the colors of their logo and the geographic makeup of their headquarters. The company has a team in the Philippines. I incorporated jasmine, the national flower of the Philippines, into the fragrance. I named the fragrance after a term the employees used to describe their motivation. The company gave new hires branded fragrant gifts as part of their welcome kit.
I stayed at a luxury hotel in Asia that had a signature fragrance. Every time I entered the hotel I was greeted with that lovely fragrance. You can even buy the fragrance in a spray parfum or a candle.
This summer, I walked through the lobby of a chic hotel in New York. It was fragranced with a basic white floral that can be bought at the corner store. Not memorable. I didn’t want to spray it on my body or buy a candle. It was just a strong air freshener.
You have a choice. High quality impactful product branding or basic forgettable product branding; there is a difference. You get what you pay for.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I mixed the water ratio incorrectly in a perfume formula. This made the perfume cloudy, which is embarrassing. I learned to neatly write my formula notes and to pay attention to what I put in my beaker.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My parents were my mentors. They were also entrepreneurs. When I moved back from working in Japan I had two options pending for my career. My father said, “Which one do you want to get up and do every day?” My parents modeled hard work, mentorship, education, sincerity and generosity. I am also fortunate to have very close friends who spur me on, challenge me, give phenomenal advice and answer the phone when I think I’ve made a colossal error. They also celebrate my wins with me.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I rarely answer in absolutes or superlatives. I can’t say “always good” or “always bad.” Disruption can start a conversation or lead to change. At best it challenges the status quo. At worst it perpetuates the status quo. In my industry there is the old guard to learning perfumery. This is where you study chemistry, work for a perfume manufacturer for several years in France until you are one of the chosen few to attend their perfumery schools. This path is excellent training but most often the chosen few may have a career making fragrances for dishwashing detergent or fabric softener sheets. The new guard, independent perfumers “indies” come from other or related disciplines and are self-taught or learned through apprenticeships. Indies also create beautifully formulated fine fragrances that rival the old guard. This is disruptive to the perfume industry of the past. I welcome new and talented voices. If safe practices are maintained, there should be no gate keeping on creativity.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?
Motivation — I love perfumery. I want to get up every day and make beautiful things.
Choice — Entrepreneurship is hard. Poverty is hard. Choose your hard.
Drive — I am determined. We sell Travertine products in the Whole Body section of Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. It took over 2 years and numerous submissions to earn this prized shelf space. Most would have given up earlier.
Detail — We pay attention to the stated and unstated desires of client requests. This past summer, I was working on a custom fragrance with a client. She leaned in and confided that she likes to travel with 2ml samples from department stores because they are small and easy to pack. When I completed her fragrance, I also made a 2ml vial of her fragrance and gave her another empty 2ml vial with a pipette that she could fill as she needed.
Focus — I have specific goals. I revise as necessary. Then I act to move towards the goal.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
I’m not ready to reveal next steps yet but of course I have a few things in the works.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I love the podcast How I Built This hosted by Guy Raz. He interviews entrepreneurs of well-known brands. His interviews resonate with me because they are real and deep. About 90 percent of the interview time is spent on struggles and hurdles. This is the reality of entrepreneurship. The remaining 10 percent is the glory that we are all familiar with. I appreciate the transparency. It reminds me that the hard days are not every day. Glory days happen as well.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“ I wanna to thank me.”
This quote is from Snoop Dogg when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At first blush these words could seem arrogant or self-absorbed. The depth comes from the things that he is thanking himself for. He thanks himself for believing, working hard, having no time off, never quitting, always being a giver, giving more than he receives and doing more right than wrong.
Often, I work and keep moving on to the next project. I rarely stop to appreciate myself and the effort that I expend. I create beautiful products for the luxury wellness market, hire employees, maintain a supportive work environment, develop new business and maintain strong relationships. I’m blessed. I’m also taking some time to thank myself.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would like to make olfactory education more accessible. This accessibility is good for students and consumers. There is a lot of mystery behind perfumery processes. It is not easy to gain experience and costly to learn. Perfumery is not taught in colleges. Higher education has coursework and majors on the other senses of taste, touch, feel and sound; but not smell?
Most consumers do not know the complexities involved in creating a fragrance. There is a great deal of math involved in this art. Often people ask me to make a fragrance while they watch.
Can I? Yes, because I have decades of experience.
Will I? Generally no, unless I have access to my full organ.
Even then, I am reluctant because I don’t want to perpetuate the erroneous notion that a fine fragrance is something that you add a few drops of 5 essential oils in a bottle and shake with a solubilizer (perfumers alcohol).
It can take several months to over a year to create a fine fragrance. This requires numerous trials and sourcing costly materials. Testing takes time. The fragrance needs time to macerate.
To make olfactive education more accessible, we offer introductory workshops. We also launched a Zoom version. These are fun and engaging. Corporate clients, private groups and cognoscenti attend our workshops. I’ve just completed an intermediate curriculum.
How can our readers follow you online?
I have a professional curated network on LinkedIn. Readers can visit our website and sign up for perfumery workshops at TravertineSpa.com. Our Instagram handle is @TravertineSpaCollection. My branding, consulting and bespoke work is by referral.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Thank you. It was my pleasure.
Meet The Disruptors: Terry Carter of Travertine Spa CollectionOn The Five Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
