Velvet & Sweet Pea's Purrfumery

Velvet and Sweet Pea's Purrfumery is a natural botanical fragrance house founded in 2005 by Laurie Stern, a former wedding florist and fashion designer, in the hills of El Cerrito overlooking San Francisco Bay. The studio takes its name from two cats Stern rescued from an animal-testing facility, and that origin story governs the house's ethics: all compositions are made without synthetics, without animal musks, and with full Leaping Bunny certification. Stern's perfume organ contains more than one thousand natural essences and oils, some dating to the 1890s, accumulated across decades of study. She draws creative inspiration from Medieval Middle Eastern perfumery, Californian wellness culture, and traditional Indian attar production, producing fragrances described as strongly characteristic, transportive, and earthy — built for depth rather than mainstream approachability. Stern also teaches natural perfumery and incense making, making the Purrfumery as much a school of aromatic craft as a commercial fragrance label.