Barb Stegemann isn’t just looking to make perfume—she’s looking to make a difference. Meeting the entrepreneur in person, she radiates a joy, presence, and warm welcoming energy that immediately shows how Stegemann has been able to persevere in the challenging landscape of beauty—bringing The 7 Virtues from a mission-minded, almost entirely self-funded (save for one initial investment) fragrance brand to a bestseller at Sephora and Unilever-backed powerhouse.
An early innovator on the clean fragrance front and sustainable perfume, The 7 Virtues has shown an impressive year-over-year revenue growth of 80% for FY 2023, with a 500% increase in direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales. With clean perfume witnessing 21% annual growth and 36% of consumers prioritizing brands that take a stance on social issues, The 7 Virtues was created with a double-hit of attraction among customers, operating with the mantra of “Make Perfume Not War.” Gen Z and younger millennials build the core of the brand’s customer base, with a 89% female, ages 25 to 34 majority. Given this cohort’s interest in social change—with 70% of Gen Z involved in a social or political cause and 83% of millennials wanting companies to share their same values—the appeal is undeniable.
Politics and Perfume
Reflecting on her path to success, the founder admits, “There's a bit of destiny. When we're present, which is the whole philosophy of Plato's Republic, everything you need will appear, guaranteed.” Raised by a single mother on welfare and assisted living, Stegemann’s journey wasn’t without its hurdles. Along the way there were her mentors, the mantra of showing up, “even if it’s scary,” and focusing on the present moment.
The founder recounts memories of moving in with her university roommate with no bed sheets and five dollars to her name, which were spent on a six-pack of beer to share with her new companions. “I've never hoarded what little stuff I had; I always give. I was always present in that moment, what does life require of me right now, and nothing else matters,” she proclaims. “When you do that, you hear things you wouldn't have heard, see things you wouldn't have seen, smell things you wouldn't have smelled; you will respond in different ways. When you're present, you're casting off those chains that society wants to inflict on us, and that is the most powerful tool in life.”
Before she was a fragrance brand founder, Stegemann was helping those affected by the ravages of war and economic/social injustice. As Honorary Colonel of the Royal Canadian Air Force, she has supported families and women in the military. As a volunteer event organizer for Halifax Humanities, she has worked towards helping to provide education for those in need. She also went on an aid mission to Afghanistan, which gave her a new perspective on humanitarian work. Reflecting on the formative time, the founder notes that before the Taliban took over the country, 47% of its population lived in poverty, a figure that has now risen to a staggering 97%.
“Often much of the aid money is not going to the people. Their own governments are corrupt. The world has basically forgotten about Afghanistan, because there is nothing you can do. All that beautiful work that was done is gone. It's frustrating to see the same thing in Haiti where I used to go; we can't go there anymore,” Stegemann states. A similar scenario happened in Rwanda.
“Rwanda had one of the most heinous genocides on the planet; nearly one million people died in 100 days. How do you come back from that? The president said we'll put a 30% minimum for female seats. As a result, Rwanda became the first female majority of women in the world. It still is,” she says. She notes the laws that have come to pass since, such as offering restorative justice to those who killed others during the war—halving the sentence for them if they went to the families of the fallen individuals and asked for forgiveness and told them where said individual was buried—and protecting gorillas from poachers by turning said hunters into adequately paid guides, were perhaps unexpected but created powerful change.
Teaching women’s start-up marketing in Haiti after Hurricane Matthew, Stegemann witnessed further corruption. “A boatload of aid was coming in, and the officials turned it away because they didn’t receive a big enough bribe,” she recalls. She speaks passionately about the transparency index, which shows the level of corruption in a country. “What we need to do when dealing with a highly corrupted country is send them to Rwanda, and they're going to show you how it's done. You're going to clean up your constitution, you're going to clean up the process. That's a part of anti-corruption, but no government does that. Long term, feeding a corrupt government money is unacceptable. You have to have women at the table, diversity, to look at their unique situation,” she enthuses.
Some might wonder how a conversation about perfumes could turn into an illumination of political corruption and mass genocide, but it is precisely this big-picture thinking (while still not ignoring the importance of detail) that makes Stegemann such a powerful leader. While she was able to return from this work unharmed, her thoughts remained with those affected by the heartbreaking conditions of living in a war-torn country, and it’s here where something as seemingly superficial as perfume could offer a helping hand.
Where Philosophy and Philanthropy Meet Perfume
To trace The 7 Virtues’ pathway to success, one must begin with the words that started it all—quite literally. Stegemann self-published The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen: A Woman’s Guide to Living and Leading in an Illogical World in 2008. The virtues outlined are wonder, balance, truth, courage, justice, wisdom, and beauty. Stegemann highlights these as the quintessential tools for not only enduring life’s hardships and challenges but rising above them to assist ourselves and others.
Stegemann dedicated the book to her friend and longtime mentor, civil military cooperation Captain Trevor Greene, who was attacked and suffered a severe brain injury while working in Afghanistan to help bring families clean water and healthcare. In the hospital, she promised to carry on his mission of peace. Having since recovered, Greene spurred Stegemann on to create The 7 Virtues in a bid to uplift women in war-torn countries. Even speaking about him today, Stegemann still gets emotional. It’s a reminder that behind her bold business sense, there beats a deeply compassionate heart that infuses the lifeblood of The 7 Virtues.“What's fascinating to me is, whether you're Jewish, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, everybody has their virtue,” she says. Like virtues, our sense of smell can be a uniting factor.
In her book, Stegemann is looking to specifically address navigating the patriarchal system of modern-day society as a woman, and the data backs up her desire to bring female leaders to the forefront. The percentage of women in CEO roles range from 7% (in North America) to 1.5% (Latin America), despite the fact that a 2019 S&P Global study showed the companies with female CEOs were more profitable and generated $1.8 trillion in excess profits, and a Quantopian study found that female CEOs drive triple the returns as their male counterparts.
“Eighty percent of household decisions are made by women. We hold the voting power; if we held hands tomorrow, entire governments would rise and fall at our collective vote,” she proclaims. “And yet we still have the cycle of war and poverty, soldiers going into danger, civilians being killed in the crossfire. We have a corruption at the highest level.” The book's pages were to become the foundation for her fragrance brand, even if it was only a glimpse of fate making itself notable at the time of writing.
“On the back of the book, I kept seeing a perfume bottle. I didn't know why. I think it goes back to instincts; what you must do in that moment is realize that it’s a sign,” the founder states. Signs naturally can lead to a discussion of faith, a subject matter that is particularly divisive today. The founder’s interest lies in nondenominational philosophy, such as the concept of the tripartite soul, comprised of the rational, spirited, and appetitive parts. Abstractly, fragrance also covers the realms of the rational (chemistry), spirit (creativity), and appetitive (attraction), explaining how the medium aligns with Stegemann’s mission.
One could also argue that fragrance resides decidedly in the feminine realm; it is not the proactive, logical domain of the masculine, but rather the intuitive, emotional, more elusive lens. Whether it’s the suppression of basic human rights of women in Afghanistan or the condemnation of sexually liberated women in Western countries, the patriarchy runs deep and globally, which is perhaps why fragrance—something accessible in some shape or form to a majority of consumers—is such a compelling medium for Stegemann’s message. “One of the things I believe firmly about business, but also life: if it's not good in the beginning, it's never going to get better. So you never compromise—walk away from a deal, a relationship, anything that takes your power and dignity from you in any moment,” she states. For while the beauty industry is undoubtedly also marked by the patriarchy and perpetuates beauty ideals, is it not by working directly within the very structures that one is wanting change that one can truly make a difference?Furthermore, on a personal level, the boost of confidence one can feel from smelling great or being complimented on their fragrance, holds an undeniable power as well.
Dragon Dens and Life Rafts
A strong foundation built the promising beginnings of The 7 Virtues, but as experience has shown, it takes more than a great concept to survive in the beauty industry. With a go-getter attitude, Stegemann seizes every opportunity to showcase her product to the world with an infectious sense of passion. Prior to our interview, she hosted an event at CPL Aromas with fragrance influencers demystifying the creation process of the brand's newest launch Cherry Ambition by presenting each accord and raw material. That afternoon she headed to Westfield Stratford for a guerilla marketing activation at the venue’s Sephora presence.
Stegemann began the brand in 2010 with CA$20,000 put on her credit card, appearing on Dragons' Den when the company was a mere eight weeks old. She received $125K CAD from investor W. Brett Wilson for 25% equity. With this backing, Stegemann launched the brand on International Women’s Day (March 8).
The company began with sourcing ingredients from countries like Afghanistan and Rwanda, but due to the country’s political troubles the brand has had to shift strategy. Today,The 7 Virtues partners with Days for Girls, with partial proceeds from every bottle sale going towards advancing menstrual equity in North America through advocacy, product distribution, and education. “It's not about perfume; it's about something bigger. We can use scent in a very primal way to advance ourselves in this society,” the founder proclaims.
The 7 Virtues began with a five-member team and no salary for its founder, and all hired individuals have stayed with the company since. A humble leader, Stegemann’s focus on loyalty and nurturing her employees has created an environment that encourages open conversation and a nonhierarchal structure. “I can't expect anyone else to walk on glass unless I too am living, learning, trying, bumbling, skinning my knee, and getting back up and trying things. You try and then you give other people courage. That's really why we're here, isn't it? I don't think it's really about perfume or beauty. It's about people, living philosophically with meaning, purpose, and joy. The core of everything I believe in is that no one can take your joy from you. Ever. I protect my joy fiercely,” she states.
When her brand was struggling to make ends meet, a spot on Sephora’s Accelerate program in 2017 helped turn things around. “I launched my original line with crappy perfumes and shameful packaging. I believed it was the best perfume ever, and then when I realized we weren't doing that great, I never blamed my partners. I looked within, took part in Accelerate, and they challenged me to change my packaging to create something that my Gen Z daughter would love,” she recalls.
With its new redo, The 7 Virtues received an illustrated, colorful, modern makeover; a departure from the more demure and romantic packaging it debuted with. “The US Sephora merchants looked at our packaging and said, ‘We love that you take on serious world issues, but you don't take yourself seriously.’ That's us in a nutshell,” she says.
It’s not just the packaging but the liquid inside that was revamped. “I had time to be thoughtful, the bandwidth to crack the code on how to make a long-lasting clean perfume. We doubled the fragrance oils, then we infused it with organic sugar cane alcohol, so when you spray it on the blotter, you immediately smell it. I don't want to wait to get to know the fragrance; you've only got seconds on the perfume floor. At the end of the day, no one cares what bottle it came in; when you're walking by somebody and they smell good, the juice is all that matters,” she says.
A Heroes-First Mentality
Created in partnership with CPL Aromas and containing 22% fragrance oil concentrations using sustainably sourced ingredients, that juice is flying off the shelves. Vanilla Woods is one of the top five bestselling fragrances at Sephora Canada. Word-of-mouth marketing and TikTok virality (“the 7 virtues vanilla woods” has 19.7 million views on the platform) helped the brand reach further success. Angela Stavrevska is the nose behind Vanilla Woods, while Kamila Lelakova, Céline Herbette, and Julie Pluchet also feature heavily on the brand’s other creations. Stavreska also worked on the amber vanilla, second skin fragrance that will be the brand’s next release in spring 2024. The 7 Virtues fragrances, while clean formulations carry an appeal that transcends categories. After all, no matter how beautiful the mission or ethos of a product, if the product itself doesn't have olfactory appeal, will the consumer buy it?
Taking a sniff of its assortment, it’s easy to see why The 7 Virtues has such a fervent following. Santal Vanille is creamy, woody, warm, and sensual—the equivalent of throwing on a cashmere V-neck with a glimpse of a lace bra underneath. Lotus Pear is a fruity concoction with a smoky undertone, grounding its playfulness in warm notes of geranium. Whereas Lotus Pear’s fruity facets are more subdued, Blackberry Lily cranks up the fructose with a mouthwateringly juicy opening that makes way for a delicate feminine heart of rose and magnolia. Coconut Sun is a bright and sunny veil of delight over the skin; but rather than being an overwhelming blast of pina coladas and suntan lotion, it conjures the return from a summer vacation, a glimpse of beachside lounging dressed in everyday wearability thanks to jasmine, sea salt, and frangipane. Vanilla Woods marries the much-loved note with rose and amber, making it a chic and well-rounded take on a note that could easily slip into saccharine territory.
Cherry Ambition, the brand’s latest release, is a boozy and succulent delight. Together with Pluchet, Stegemann created a fruity gourmand with sophistication: a concoction of its namesake fruit alongside mandarin, cherry blossom, orris, saffron, sustainable Australian sandalwood, and upcycled green cognac. The fragrance was designed with the input of 400 Sephora beauty advisors across the US and the UK. Stegemann hosted the largest masterclass in the history of Sephora Canada, asking for their input on the final three mods of the fragrance. Fragrances of said fruit variety have proved a smash hit with consumers but in the clean perfume category are a rare sighting.
“There are only five cherry fragrances at Sephora; we're the first clean cherry, so there was a lot of whitespace,” Stegemann comments. The fragrance is designed to inspire the wearer to strive for their dreams using scent association; it’s “how to use” instructions direct the individual to spray the fragrance on when they are feeling successful in order to recreate that same feeling from there on out. “The idea is that ambition is not a place, it's a virtue. Never be told you're too confident or too ambitious. It's a part of your service and your gifts. Especially as women, I want you to feel liberation from the chains of perception that have told us to settle down or behave. Speak up, get loud with your love, be an activist, and get louder about something that is not working,” Stegemann proclaims.
Reflecting on her work with CPL Aromas, she says, “I've had some really incredible people take me under their wing. They let me visualize what I wanted when I was just this tiny company that was struggling. They put their whole team behind us. When someone comes along and picks you up and dusts you off, like Sephora as well—that's why I'm exclusive. My mentor said, ‘I’ve never seen a company move as fast as yours.’ When someone says jump, I say how high? When someone gives me a chance to be all that I can be on this earth, I don't take things personally; throw anything at me. It’s a daily practice. If a mentor or someone above you or someone who is guiding you says they're disappointed, don't be hurt by it. Go fix it.”
It’s this heroes-first launch mentality that has seen the brand flourish with gusto at Sephora. “That’s what you want as a brand; you want to respect their real estate. You're taking a spot on their shelf, so you've got to make sure that it works. You've got to respect your partners, your team, people that rely on you to have an income,” Stegemann remarks. “I think of it as the Olympics: there's gold, silver, and bronze. Nobody ever hears about the fourth person. When I think of perfume creation, we'll go through 51 versions, we'll miss deadlines. It's about getting it right and on the podium.”
On that podium also resides Stegemann’s passion for uplifting others, a counterpoint to models of business with a competition-first mindset. “I want everyone to be loud about what they love, in a loving way. We don't have to leave a trail of dead bodies to succeed. Success means you uplift. When you become stronger and you feel you can do the things you want to advance your life, you make my life better. In my view, it's about having that conversation, and perfume is such a perfect platform to use for good,” she states.
The Future Ahead
With an evergrowing fanbase and a steady flow of successful releases, the company soon caught the eye of investors. In November 2023, The 7 Virtues received investment in a funding round spearheaded by Unilever and accompanied by True Beauty Ventures, the first fragrance investment made by either party since their inception. “The 7 Virtues has cracked the code on creating long-lasting perfumes using sustainable ingredients that their loyal customers love, along with their empowering and authentic story," Anna Ohlsson-Baskerville, Partner at Unilever Ventures, commented at the time of announcement.
"When an indie brand like The 7 Virtues outpaces brands with million dollar budgets, it proves the revenue potential is explosive with the right type of support, which we are excited to provide as this team takes The 7 Virtues to the next level. We were incredibly impressed by the brand's strong productivity in fragrance, due in part to the most innovative, authentic guerrilla marketing tactics that resonate with clients,” added Rich Gersten, True Beauty Ventures co-founder. The funds will be used to open The 7 Virtues New York office, amplify global expansion with Sephora, fund inventory, and open a “Maison” in Nova Scotia for bespoke perfume creation. Aside from its own DTC presence, the brand is at Sephora in 18 countries and is set to debut inside 830 Sephora x Kohl’s locations over the next year.
“For me the loyalty of being exclusive is personally very important. Sephora was the life raft when the company was struggling, but also just navigating those early days, and now having come all this way to having the investment with Unilever and True Beauty Ventures, it's amazing. We’re their first fragrance [investment], and I think it's because they look at the numbers, and they see our EBITDA, profit margin, our productivity on the shelves; it outranks many brands with multimillion dollar marketing budgets,” she explains.
Stegemann expresses great admiration for her ongoing and new partners in business, all unified by a mission to keep amplifying The 7 Virtues but never lose sight of its original concept in the process. “Those are some of the practices of maintaining our ethics and staying true to who we are but also pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. Does our little indie need to grow into a legacy with a new bottle? How do you protect the DNA? We're going to put it out to the community, and they'll tell us. We don't want to take away what they love. If you change your packaging too dramatically, they will not recognize it, ” she explains.
“We get to keep our DNA, which they're very respectful of, magnify it, and bring other people in. Now we're slowly hiring, using the investment money but also bringing other people in who can love the brand and be ambassadors. I think of The 7 Virtues as this little homeschooled kid; this outlier who broke all the rules because it didn't know them. It's really fun to bring this kind of union together of wisdom from their part, but also foreign territory for both of us. I think we're all inventors and that these two partners have an adventurous spirit like I do,” she adds. With the corporate structure of said enterprises, the founder participates in an elevation and mindful execution of the brand’s growth strategy—be it for launching new products or expanding The 7 Virtues team.
“One of our investors said to me, ‘I fully believe in hire slow, fire fast.’ I’m meeting with two of our first hires; they weren't just looking for a job, they were looking for a place to invest and grow and be a part of something big, to get loud with their love. By creating that kind of space, you're going to attract people who are going to be thoughtful. They're going to flex that muscle of being accepting of information they might not like, but they will live in the practice of never taking someone's power and dignity. I think that's very important. In the beauty world, in a world of history, like perfume, with very big brands and other ways of doing it, there's room for all of us,” she says.
With those words of wisdom, Stegemann departs for her whirlwind UK tour, ready to introduce the rest of the world to the joys of Cherry Ambition. Much like the fragrance name, the efforts of her endeavors will continue to bear nourishing fruit for years to come. Like a spritz of perfume that lingers in the air after its wearer has left the room, with one asking oneself quizzically what that glorious scent is and how one can possibly partake in it, The 7 Virtues is leaving its undeniable mark.
