My sister’s birthday was a few days ago, and she’s particularly enjoyable to shop for because she loves fragrance as much as I do. After considering the many new natural scents I have come to love over the past several months, I settled on Illuminated Perfume’s Lyra for her gift. Ultimately it was an easy decision because like my sister, Lyra is beautiful, interesting and loved by many.
I have a tiny pot of Lyra, created by Roxana Villa, that I purchased from etsy.com. It came in the Botanical Solid Mini Set, and is housed in the cutest little pink pot with a wax seal on the lid. Knowing that dipping my finger in this tiny pot gives me much pleasure, I am hoping that the full size in a metal compact, presented in a crocheted pouch will be even more special for my sister. The crocheted pouches are made by Ms. Villa’s mother who sells her crafty creations with her granddaughter (Ms. Villa’s daughter) and you can read more about their family’s story here.
Lyra in the solid form is very lovely to apply. It’s smooth and warms easily on the skin. Lyra is described as an ambery floral on the Illuminated Perfume etsy site. I agree with that, but the vanilla aspect of the amber lends a sweetness that softens the scent and polishes any harsh edges that amber will oftentimes possess. A sense of honeyed woods puts forth its own nectar as well, and sparked a wonderful memory in me that I’m certain my sister will remember.
We were both in the Girl Scouts as children and spent some time, not a lot, but some time on camping trips outside Phoenix with our respective troops. My troop leaders loved to have us bright-eyed Girl Scouts smell the pine trees which they named the “Ice Cream Cone Trees” since their bark smelled just like vanilla ice cream. Lyra takes me back to inhaling the vanilla scented bark as a young girl, and the wonderment at how a tree in the woods could smell so sweet. Jasmine and ylang ylang augment the smooth sweetness of this memory and depending on the day, the florals move from tropical lushness to a subtler background foundation. Either way, the evolving blend flows flawlessly on the skin and creates comfort and delight.
Roxana Illuminated Perfume is a gorgeous and bewitching line of 100% all-natural and botanical perfumes to discover. Whether you explore her website, blog or etsy site you will find Ms. Villa’s work inspirational. Please also take a look at the current April 15, 2009 edition of Sniffapalooza Magazine for my review of her Vespertina perfume. There, you will also find an informative and engaging interview with Roxana Villa in the Natural Perfumers Page.
posted by ~Trish
Lyra is available at Etsy for $65 for the solid perfume compact.
Lyra image ©Greg Spalenka, see more at www.spalenka.com and at http://www.spalenka.etsy.com
thefloraesthetic.com 
I love that this scent is named after the heroine in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Material’s trilogy. This sounds lovely.
It is so lovely. You’ll always find out something interesting about Roxana’s perfumes when you go digging around her blog/website!
~T
as I’m sure I have said elsewhere on the internetland I am totally in awe of Philip Pullman and therefore love that this is called Lyra.
I really need to get some because everyone speaks very highly of it and I am very keen on the idea of natural scents; I definitely haven’t done enough to get into them.
Well I need to explore the world of Philip Pullman! His children’s books look really interesting as well as his novels.
If you do get the chance to try Lyra, please let me know what you think.
~T
Really great and nice stuff, thanks