Fragrance house

Velvet & Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery

Velvet & Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery was started by Laurie Stern in 2005 and named for two cats she rescued from a laboratory where they had been used in scientific testing. After leaving her wedding-flower business in 2000, Stern immersed herself in natural perfumery, and the brand publicly launched its botanical-perfume line on Valentine’s Day 2007 in El Cerrito, California. Stern remains the house’s artisanal perfumer and central creative figure. Its perfumes are handmade in small batches from organic or wildcrafted materials where possible, without synthetic ingredients or animal fixatives. Following Stern’s 2018 visit to conservation sites in Kenya, conservation became a new focus of the perfumery. In 2020, she created Luminous Lemurs with Madagascar ylang-ylang to raise awareness of lemur habitat loss, directing part of its proceeds to Centre ValBio. The fragrance received Best Perfume recognition from Fragrantica and Best of Scent recognition from CaFleureBon that year.