Luminous Lemurs: A New Eco-Perfume to Help Save Habitats
Fragrance News

by John Biebel
10/17/20 10:28:03 ( 17 comments )

San Francisco’s Velvet and Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery has released a new perfume to help raise awareness of the crisis that many animals are facing as their environments are changing across the globe. The all-natural perfume Luminous Lemurs focuses on this particularly fascinating native of Madagascar. As the lemur’s native habitat is rapidly becoming deforested in that country, many eyes throughout the world are focussed on efforts to help save the lemur by ensuring it has enough forest in which to live.

Laurie Stern, perfumer for Velvet and Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery, was first struck with the idea of creating a charity fragrance for the Madagascar lemur when she was gifted a bottle of exquisite ylang ylang oil from the island nation. She says, "Luminous Lemurs got its start when a friend who has traveled to Madagascar on many conservationist treks brought me ylang ylang essential oil as a gift from a distillery that she visited. She put this natural treasure in my hands and told me about the lemurs she saw there, and how the dense forests where they live are dwindling from deforestation.” One of the people that her friend met was Dr. Patricia Wright, a conservationist who works at Centre ValBio in Ranomafana, Madagascar. Their efforts include working directly with the populace to reverse damage of deforestation through educational programs and research. Lemurs are some of the most highly endangered animals on the planet, so the effort is urgently needed.

Stern also mentions that the lemur create a rather fascinating scent of their own through mating rituals - ring-tail lemurs emit, through scent glands on their wrists, a smell reminiscent of fruit and flowers. With this curious fact in mind about these highly social and gregarious creatures, Velvet and Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery has created a Luminous Lemurs, a fragrance that uses many ingredients are either responsibly sourced from the island, or inspired by items that are commonly grown there. Not unlike the lemurs themselves, Madagascar vanilla has also undergone a crisis of scarcity, and Stern was fortunate to have some reserved, aged Malagasy vanilla to include in this perfume. She says, "Almost 20 years ago, I heard about the overharvesting of sandalwood and chose not to buy any more. More recently, the perfume world is talking about the overharvesting of Frankincense and Madagascar vanilla. I stopped buying these materials many years ago too – instead, I am carefully using what I have.”

A generous portion of the sales of Luminous Lemurs will help to fund the Centre ValBio. It’s of particular need now due to the impact of COVID-19. Much of the center's recognition and income would usually be covered by tourism and study abroad programs, but most of that has been curtailed due to the international health crisis. Velvet and Sweet Pea hope to shore up some of these costs through its perfume offering.

You can purchase Luminous Lemurs in a few formats: 15 and 30 ml spray eau de pafum editions, various solid perfumes (which contain a slightly higher concentration of the eau de parfum,) and a special 30 ml glass-stopper bottle of the perfume as well. You can find all these options, along with more information about the charity and cause at the Velvet and Sweet Pea’s Purrfumery website.