I met Vyrao founder Yasmin Sewell at a pop-up in New York. She was standing at the door herself, greeting people as they came in, and I liked her immediately.
The funny thing is that Vyrao is exactly the kind of fragrance brand I usually approach with some skepticism. Its identity is built around wellness, energy and, increasingly, neuroscience, an area I find interesting but am not completely sold on when it comes to some of the claims being made around fragrance and emotional wellbeing. It is also a creative-director-led house, with Sewell working with outside perfumers rather than building the brand around an in-house perfumer or laboratory.
It reminded me of an analogy Rémi Pulvérail recently used when we were discussing the perfume industry: a restaurant serving an expensive meal without its own kitchen or chef, with much of the actual making happening somewhere else. That model has become increasingly common in fragrance, but it is not usually the kind of brand structure that draws me in.
And yet I bought two bottles. I have even ordered the newest one. It is supposed to make me more confident, which feels like a rather ambitious promise for a perfume. I suppose we’ll see.
The reason is fairly simple: Yasmin Sewell is very good at building a brand. She has tremendous taste, a strong point of view and the confidence to articulate exactly what Vyrao is supposed to be. More importantly, I actually like the perfumes. They are also fairly priced within the current niche market, and the entire presentation is beautifully done. The bottles, boxes, photography, campaigns and retail environments all feel considered and consistent. Vyrao is well funded, and you can see where that money has gone.
Now, according to The Business of Fashion, Vyrao is finalizing a sale process and has hired a banker to oversee it. No buyer has been announced, but the news makes sense when you look at how quickly the business has developed. Vyrao was launched in 2021, but Sewell was hardly a newcomer to luxury. Raised in Australia and long based in London, she built a career in fashion that included her own influential boutique, major buying and creative roles at Browns and Liberty, and a senior position at Farfetch. She understood retail, branding and consumer behavior long before she entered perfume.
She has also been very good at attracting serious money. Estée Lauder Companies’ New Incubation Ventures invested in Vyrao, followed by another funding round led by L Catterton’s Elevate Beauty fund, with Estée Lauder and Manzanita Capital also participating. That kind of backing has allowed Vyrao to expand internationally, build strong wholesale relationships and create the sort of polished brand world that is difficult for a small independent company to finance on its own.
There is also something very timely about what Sewell built. Vyrao arrived as fragrance was moving deeper into the wellness conversation, and she gave that idea a clear visual and commercial identity before “neuroscents” became one of the industry’s favorite new terms. I may still question some of the science-based marketing language around the category, but I don’t question her ability to recognize where consumers are going.
That is why the sale interests me. Vyrao is only five years old, yet it already has strong investors, international distribution, recognizable branding and a portfolio that is not dependent on one viral perfume. Those are exactly the qualities that make a young fragrance company attractive to a larger buyer.
I may not agree with every part of the Vyrao philosophy, but Sewell managed to do something that matters more than marketing theory: she made me buy the perfumes anyway. Twice. And apparently I am not the only one who sees value in what she has built. In the current fragrance gold rush, where investors and beauty conglomerates are scrambling for brands with a clear identity, strong distribution and room to grow, Vyrao looks exactly like the kind of company buyers want to get their hands on.
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