Elegant and abundantly creative is how we would describe our perfumer, Roxana Villa. Born in the port city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, into a lineage of well-travelled, women with European roots, she quickly learned to appreciate the virtues of expertly prepared, family meals, hand knitted apparel and visits to foreign lands.
After earning her BFA at Otis Art Institute in downtown Los Angeles, Roxana moved to NYC to pursue a profession as a freelance illustrator, working primarily in the health & wellness sector.
After a successful twenty-year career as an award winning visual artist, Roxana trained as an aromatherapist and studied both alchemy and ancient forms of making perfume. She then weaved her love of nature with her skill sets, into an olfactory pleasure dome, where the whole becomes greater than the sum of each part.
“Beautiful, complex botanical fragrances are life enhancing and have the ability to deeply connect us to our own essential nature.”
Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Roxana intends to facilitate a complete sensory experience with nature by making fragrances from whole ingredients as she has done so with her brand Illuminated Perfume. She views essential oils as concentrated agents of mind body wellness, they smell good and work on different systems in a holistic way.
In 2012 Roxana learned that her great grandfather was a key figure in La Estrella, the first homeopathic pharmacy in Buenos Aires. After hearing stories from her uncle and seeing photos of the grand interiors featuring mahogany columns with alchemical imagery, Murano glass, and beautiful allegorical murals depicting health and medicine, Roxana perceived the complete circle of her work. She has realized the sacred union of honoring beauty, wellness and nature as pillars in our evolutionary leap with Mother Earth.
"I am a devotee of nature, working with the plants by melding alchemy with modern artistic wisdom to create a transcendent, sensual experience.”