We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Peterson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

The process of going from making scents as a hobby to becoming a professional perfumer went in baby steps. After leaving the culinary world to go back to school, I became interested in making my own fragrances as a way to keep my knowledge of flavors sharp. I made scents for myself, along with friends and family, for several years. At some point, my wife Jane Larson, who has an art/design background, offered to create some packaging and put a website together for the scents. We operated our company, Sfumato, as a side hustle for a few years as we continued to work our day jobs. We started doing dinners where we would pair food and drink with our scents, and one of the dinner attendees asked if we would like to open a restaurant in a building that he owned. After touring his space, we were intrigued, and although we decided a restaurant wasn’t the best fit for the space, it would be ideal for a fragrance retail shop that transformed into a scented cocktail bar at night. Getting that space ready to open, along with figuring out all the licensing and logistics to make it run, was a step into the unknown as I quit my full time job to run the shop. The first year or two were brutal, lots of long days and nights, but it started to catch on, and almost 5 years later, we are still open and running (mostly) smoothly.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Kevin Peterson, and I run a natural fragrance company called Sfumato, and a scented cocktail bar called Castalia, in Detroit Michigan. I started my working life in the culinary world, and cooked everywhere from fast food to fancy French, but eventually left the kitchen and started creating scents. I spent time working as a research scientist in the automotive industry, but eventually my scent hobby turned into a scent company, and my passion for flavors was focused onto cocktails, and my businesses were created. With Sfumato, beyond our base offerings of fragrances and drinks, we are always looking for unique ways to use aroma to add an intriguing layer to experiences. We take on a lot of unique projects, from designing scents to pair with music, to hosting scented dinners, to teaching classes on perfume making.
We recently collaborated with a pianist, Justin Snyder, to create an experience called The Scent of Light, in which he played a variety of musical pieces evoking optical phenomena, and I created scents to pair with the musical pieces. We hosted the performance in an art gallery for about 50 attendees, and as Justin played, I diffused and misted different scents in the air, created an olfactory ‘soundtrack’ that mirrored the music. The crowd really loved this unique approach to using scent to add an additional level of emotional impact to the music.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I have found three elements to be key to managing a team. The first is to be very upfront about what the job entails. During interviews, I tell prospective employees exactly what they can expect to be doing on the job, the good and the bad, and what I will expect of them. If the job isn’t a good fit for that person, I would rather we both decide that before they start. I also think it is important to help employees maintain a vision for the future. I want them to keep in mind where their career could go, and what the future plans are for the company. When a job becomes a repetitive cycle, the excitement gets lost and people start looking for a new job to maintain that exhilaration. If you can provide a compelling vision, they are more likely to stay with you.
Lastly, I try to foster a feeling in myself of being privileged to work with my staff. There are many other places they could choose to work, but they have chosen to work with me, and spend their time and energy both executing my vision, and bringing their own creativity to the business.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Although my wife and I founded both Sfumato and Castalia, we recently offered one of our long time employees, Kyle DuPree, the chance to become our business partner. Kyle was a regular at Castalia, and knew our entire menu. He had done some bartending previously, and expressed interest in learning our approach to making cocktails. He was very enthusiastic and quickly picked up skills. Then, during the ever-shifting regulations of 2020, he really showed his character by constantly pivoting with us, executing numerous different projects and products that we launched to stay afloat, and just bobbing and weaving with us through a very uncertain time. After his loyalty during all that weirdness, we thought it only appropriate for him to become a co-owner of the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.sfumatofragrances.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/sfumatofragrances
• Facebook: facebook.com/sfumatofragrances.com
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sfumato-fragrances-detroit

Image Credits
Emily Berger