‘Michigan Scents’ Fill the Air on Island’s Hoban Street
By Leslie Rott

Richard Marshall, owner of Michigan Scents on Hoban Street, stands in front of a wall of potpourri burners and shows off several boxes of Scentchips, the store’s premier product.

Sometimes business sense is stumbled upon, which is what happened to Richard Marshall, the owner of Michigan Scents on Hoban Street, a new shop on Mackinac this summer.

While on vacation in San Antonio, Texas, he stumbled upon a Scentchip factory and, in talking with the owner, learned the man was interested in having a store on Mackinac Island.Mr. Marshall agreed run it.

“I was just there on vacation and came across a great business opportunity,” he said.

Newly unemployed, the opportunity came at a welcome time.

“Everybody’s heard of Mackinac, everybody comes to Mackinac, it’s the biggest tourist destination in the State of Michigan,” he said.

The principal product in Mr. Marshall’s Michigan Scents store is the Scentchip, a scented wax chip shaped like a leaf or flower and used as a home fragrance.

The store features 72 fragrances of Scentchips, 40 blends, and 10 house blends. The most popular store fragrances are lilac, citrus, and cinnamon, the most popular selling blends are country spice, dreamsicle, and bouquet, and the most popular house blends are Lake Michigan Sunset, Mackinac Island Memories, and Lake Michigan.

The Scentchips are to be used with potpourri warmers. A six- ounce box of scentchips should last for 140 hours worth of scent, which is as long as a $20 candle, Mr. Marshall said. The smell of Scentchips should last up to five years, if used only as potpourri and not warmed.

A six ounce box of scentchips is $8.95 and warmers range in price from $9.95 to $29.95.

The store is seasonal and Mr. Marshall plans on keeping the store open until sometime in October, then reopening next summer.

Mr. Marshall has another location at Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi and is Michigan’s premier Scentchip dealer. He is from Novi, went to Northern Michigan University, and worked on the Island previously. This is his fourth, non-consecutive season on Mackinac.