The first reaction is mixed and skeptical. On the one hand, the five Vyrao bottles are beautiful, and we love their names and the secrets they carry: I am Verdant (transformation and illumination), Free 00 (liberation and sensuality), Witchy Woo (courage and creativity), Magnetic 70 (attraction and protection), and Georgette (self love). On the other hand, we tell ourselves: here we are, someone again is surfing the gigantic wave of healing, a label that we find today on almost every consumer object; in this case, it is a perfume.
And when we tell that to Yasmin Sewell, the founder of Vyrao, and to her energetic healer Louise Mita, suddenly the Zoom call between London, Hawaii and Beirut lights up with two wonderful smiles.
“I don’t want to bring around the skeptical ones, I totally understand that. You can choose to believe in it, and if you don’t, it’s okay. I just want Vyrao to light a spark of joy and happiness, to make people feel good. We don’t have to believe in order to experience,” says Sewell. The way she talks, the way she speaks about her being quite psychic as a child, how much she always trusted her intuition and her gut feeling, and the way she has inspired others through energies and the whole concept of wellness: with simple words, and again with that beautiful smile, all of which help you understand that she is very far from being but a zealous proselyte. And when asked about the first smells that she remembers and that she will never forget, Sewell names two pure feel-good scents: “apple lollipops” and “burning onions for the mujaddara,” cooked by her Lebanese grandmother, Georgette, whose name has been bestowed on one of the fragrances.
Either way, the idea of creating a scent based on energies and plants came late in her journey into well-being and healing. Well-convinced of the importance of the communion between the emotions (and the thoughts) and the body, she realized that this could ideally be channeled into a perfume. So she surrounded herself with Lynn Harris – the nose –, and Louise Mita, the founder of Integrative Quantum Medicine. Louise’s laughter, her exuberance, her love of life are in themselves an invitation to try a healing perfume, and will put your skepticism to rest.
Because there is something witchy, white witchy, about these two women and about the whole Vyrao universe, if only by the labeling of one of the bottles, Witchy Woo. They answer in unison: “We love the word “witch”! We are the three witches of Vyrao and there’s a little “witchy” in all of us, some kind of magic ready to be unleashed! We wanted Vyrao to trigger something in our brains, some olfactory memories that made us feel so good at the time,” they say. They state so again and again, with their incredible and oh so contagious smiles.
And they are probably right. In 2021 more than ever, magic is definitely needed. And very much welcomed.
