When the time comes to pick the right fragrance for an important meeting, to see friends, or to go on a date, Yasmin Sewell believes the decision should be based on emotion and feeling. Enter Vyrao, Sewell’s fragrance brand, through which she aims to equip people with energetic potions to take on the world through scent.
Sewell is a veteran in the fashion and beauty industry. She’s held the most prominent jobs in the business for companies like Browns, Liberty, and Farfetch, to name a few, and launched fragrance names like Frédéric Malle in the UK. After leaving her role as Vice President of Style and Creative at Farfetch in 2019, Sewell felt ready to do something for herself. “I was just going through a change in my personal life. I have two boys. I wanted to focus on them. I just took some time for myself,” says Sewell. “What do I really want to do now with my life? What am I going to create that’s truly what I’m about and what I believe in? And it was really about energy.”
Vyrao is the ultimate fusion between energetic healing and master perfumery. There are five unique scents, each crafted using plant and flower remedies, where ingredients are selected to emote feelings at the highest level.
What sets Vyrao apart, other than the enamouring scent, is the sustainably sourced Herkimer diamond that sits inside each and every bottle. “In the crystal world, they are known as the most powerful quartz crystal on earth,” says Sewell. “They hold, retain, and give off energy. It’s a little bit of magic, I always say.”
‘I am Verdant’ is Vyrao’s symbol of transformation and illumination. It is a green scent that bursts with mossy citrus, which comes from Italian bergamot, cyclamen, iris and orange. ‘Free 00’ layers Sicilian lemon and mandarin with notes of waterlily to inspire a release of inhibitions. Yet it is ‘Witchy Woo’, the brand’s fragrance for courage and creativity, that is proving to be one of the most captivating of the range. It is an enveloping mix of the earthy, rare Moroccan orris and warm spices.
Much like Patrick Suskind’s novel “Perfume”, but without the tragedy, fragrances are created from a sense of nostalgia, memory or experience. When working with Vyrao’s perfumer, Lyn Harris, Sewell talked about what she wanted to feel when wearing a scent rather than what it should smell like. “I created new memories with these scents, so I don’t believe they smell like anything I’ve smelled before. They are completely new to me, and I guess I created new memories with them,” says Sewell.
“Vyrao is about yourself and changing the way that you feel. So when you walk out into the world or when you’re with your children, friends, family, or colleagues, it changes your field and how you feel about yourself. And that’s really everything,” says Sewell.
Although fragrance sits separate from fashion, one can’t help but feel it completes the same circle. With incense, candles, and more extraordinary fragrances coming, Sewell is on a well-being journey to uplift and heal us all, one spray at a time.