Bustle's 2025 Beauty Icon Awards: The Fragrance Innovators
The Perfumer On A Mission Of Empowerment: Barb Stegemann
Barb Stegemann sees scent as a vehicle for peace and female empowerment. In 2009, she launched fragrance brand 7 Virtues, sourcing orange blossom and rose essential oils from farmers in Afghanistan as an alternative to the poppy trade — which has historically funded violence in the region. Since then, she’s expanded globally, harvesting ingredients from communities around the world recovering from conflict. As Stegemann herself puts it: “My real job is to make rebuilding sexier than destruction. I do this through perfume.” The brand’s scent lineup runs the gamut from juicy, fruity florals (like Lotus Pear) to elevated, woodsy gourmands (like Vanilla Woods), and proves that doing good can smell downright irresistible.