Inside Your Scents Trading, With 33 Years On Divisadero

Inside Your Scents Trading, With 33 Years On DivisaderoPhotos: Stephen Jackson/Hoodline
Stephen Jackson
Published on July 23, 2014
Jason Hopkins has been in the incense business on Divisadero since 1981, and he’s seen both the neighborhood and the location of Your Scents Trading change quite a bit over the years. We stopped by his shop to learn more about this long-running Divisadero spot.
 
Jason was born and raised on Waller and Pierce and has lived in the neighborhood his whole life. He made sure to point out that to him, the neighborhood was always called the Fillmore.
 
Your Scents was first opened by Hassan Sami in the space now occupied by San Franpsycho, back in 1981. At that time, Jason was just ten years old and began helping out at the shop, sweeping the floor and doing what he could. In the late 80s, the shop moved locations to the space that is now Health Haven, and then eventually right next-door, to the roughly 3,200 square foot location at 629 Divisadero. Jason became a partner in the business in 1993, and the shop continued to occupy that space until a propane tank blew up on the roof on Valentine’s Day, 1997. The explosion caused a massive fire and forced them out of the space.
 
Prospects looked grim for Your Scents, since they were renting the space from a man named T.W. Washington, who Jason referred to as, “the richest, blackest man in San Francisco,” and they were getting quite a deal on the space—just $750 a month. However, just a week after the fire, a man Jason called Mr. Kelsey, who had been running his business out of their current location, passed away. This allowed Jason to move into Mr. Kelsey’s former shop, a variety store of sorts where, according to Jason, you could also buy fireworks on the hush. 

Although it was a significantly smaller space, they were able to maintain a reasonable lease, and the business prevailed. It should also be noted that from 1997 to 2003, Jason was also renting the space where the SF Skate Club Hub is today and using it as a warehouse.
 
All told, Jason Hopkins has been working on Divisadero Street since before many of its newer residents were born.


 
“We’re an Afro-centric bath and body shop. For a while, we were trying to sell black soap and shea butter and people looked like us like we were crazy. Now they sell it everywhere,” Jason told us.
 
Your Scents sells a variety of incense in all amounts, along with essential oils, body oils, bath crystals, art, and apparel. Much of Jason's products are imported using longstanding direct relationships with both African and Indian traders. Jason says his providers are a key reason he’s been able to keep his costs down in an increasingly competitive neighborhood marketplace.
 
However, the real way he’s been able to keep costs down is due to the fact that he makes much of the incense himself, purchasing plain sticks and dipping them in oil mixtures right in the back of his shop.
 
“The only reason I can stay in business is if I manufacture the incense myself. There’s not too much money in the incense business all the time. But I have quality stuff. People who like to meditate or use it for cleansing, they buy it from me.”


 
Despite his inventiveness and the quality of his product, things still look dicey for the long-term future of Your Scents Trading. Jason told us he only has less than two years left on his lease, and when that time comes to an end, he’s not sure what will happen to his business.
 
The potential ousting of a long-running, culturally significant business is nothing new to Jason, who has seen the neighborhood change firsthand.
 
“This was a working-class black neighborhood. When crack hit in the 80s, it kind of broke it down. This is where white people from Upper Haight and the Avenues would come to buy drugs but not have to deal with the crackheads in the Lower Fillmore. So that made this place kind of a ghetto. The change to this neighborhood is kind of a double-edged sword. The pro side is that it's cleaning up the environment and that it’s making it thrive again, but we lost the culture that we had.”
 
On a parting note, Jason told us that an older resident he knows cried during the first Divisadero Art Walk because it reminded him so much of the neighborhood in the 60s and 70s, except for one big difference: back then, it was mostly African Americans bustling around the neighborhood.