Roxana Illuminated Perfume: Chaparral; A Real Bodice Ripper

By Beth "Pa said I could have my choice of any man....I’d rather have my choice of any horse" I remember the first time that I ever fell in love with a cowboy. Yep…. It was that head over heels, madly in lust, throw it all away and follow him madly off into the sunset kind of passion. I believe that at the time I was 15. My parents used to take me on wonderful trips, to beautiful places that we enjoyed together , but then they discovered the game of golf which I really hated and to this day have never developed any kind of passion for . So we struck a deal of sorts and they began to find beautiful places to play golf where there were horses for me to ride, a formula which worked out for us very well. They’d tee off early in the morning and I’d go running down to the stables after breakfast to spend the day grooming the horses and playing with the barn cats after my morning ride. I was lucky enough to ride horses all over Hawaii, learn to swim with them through the glacier rivers of the Canadian Rockies and the beautiful streams of West Virginia and the Carolinas. All of these places were beautiful, but none compared to the Arizona Biltmore where we stayed in beautiful Spanish style cottages and as a fairly precocious youngster I fairly well enjoyed the run of the place. There were beautiful stables on the Biltmore grounds and I spent blissful days riding the beautiful trails around the hotel with a guide while my parents enjoyed perfecting their precious game. The lands around the Biltmore Hotel were beautifully manicured and gorgeous but soon I began to long to ride up in the beautiful mountains that surrounded the Phoenix /Scottsdale area. My mother found a stable somewhere around Camelback mountain and dropped me off with a kiss and a packed lunch for the day. I was in heaven….I was going to get to ride my dream horse, a gorgeous paint mare up into those mountains for the day. We saddled up and off we went, me and my mare and the very quiet cowboy who was assigned to keep me out of trouble for the day. I still remember how he looked that day. He wore a stetson that was fairly battered but kept his wavy brown hair out of his green eyes. Nothing fancy dress about him at all , just button front Levi’s and a worn chambray shirt. He was a bit shy and a wee bit dusty but when he swung his leg over his beautiful chestnut gelding I was completely mesmerized. I still remember the smell of that day….my horse, the cactus , desert and mesquite with the ever present creosote lending a bitter sweat tang to the sweetness in the very dry heat . I followed him up the trail and we rode together silently along the ridge. That was when it happened ……suddenly and with the ferocity of a bolt of lightning his horse reared and came crashing down over and over again with his front hooves , striking an unseen target. My horse spun away, but I quieted her easily and only then did I turn to see what had happened. My cowboy smiled softly and pointed to the ground where a desert rattler lay in many pieces, crushed to death with a terrifying accuracy. I still remember his only words….”I promised them that I’d keep you safe” and we rode side by side for the rest of the afternoon. He smelled incredible…of salt sweat, tobacco, horse and sage. I never knew his real name, but it didn’t matter. In that moment he became a huge part of my emotional landscape….. of what I wanted a man to be. He kept me riding close to him for the rest of that afternoon and I’m sure that he’s the reason that I’ve always had such a passionate love affair with my horses. I can promise that you’ve never never lived until you’ve seen the beginnings of an Arizona sunset from the back of a splendid steed in the company of a fine man like that. Thank God he was such a gentleman for I’m pretty sure that I would have thrown myself at him if given the opportunity but sadly he never asked. I know that my mother thought that I’d gone just a wee bit mad, which perhaps I had and the power of that first unsatisfied lust....alternately loving and hating him held me captive for quite a few years. I’ve never completely forgotten about him, but he’s been tucked away safely, locked deep in my heart for many years. That is until the day that I arrived home to find a package from Roxana Villa awaiting me. In it were 2 samples of her Chaparral perfume, one liquid and one of her sumptuous honeyed solids. I opened them both and applied each to my wrists. I wasn’t prepared for the primal response that I had to Chaparral as it melted into my skin. In an instant that day up on the mountain came flooding back to me and I was turned once again into that young girl who couldn’t bear to leave the stables that evening. To me, Chaparral is the smell of unbridled passion , of virgin heat roaring between your thighs and of a desert so fiery and beautiful that it can make you cry with your first breath of it. Like all of Roxana’s perfumes it is completely natural and filled with her magical handcrafted accords which are beautiful and filled with incredible intention and energy. The California Chaparral is a gorgeous landscape filled with beautifully fragrant , draught tolerant plants that is constantly under threat of destruction by wildfire, landslide and urban sprawl. The California Chaparral Institute , an organization that Roxana supports with proceeds from the sales of her wonderful perfumes is devoted to protecting this fragile ecosystem and educating us all so that our grandchildren can know the captivating energy and fragrance of “The Wild West” that’s long gone, but seems to be forever branded in our souls. Roxana’s Chaparral is honey and white sage, herbs , woods and a bit of Frankincense blended to create a ferocious inner fire in the way that only Roxana Villa can. This is the smell of Viggo Mortensen releasing his beloved paint stallion back into the wild in the beautiful film Hidalgo or Anthony Hopkins cast as the romantic Zorro with his hands quietly calming his beautiful black horse…some men can just live that large in your dreams. Chaparral is so incredibly sexy on my husband that I can barely keep my hands off of him when he’s wearing it. Be careful with it because it’s provocative, almost enough so that it should come with a warning! If you try it and I truly think that you ought to, I can’t take any responsibility for the abandonment of your good sense. But by nature I’m definitely a pot stirrer and I do have samples which of course I am willing to share with you….just let me know by stating in your comments below that you’d love to be included in the drawing! The draw is now closed. All of her beautiful Chaparral products can be purchased through Roxana’s Etsy site. The California Chaparral Institute can be found at californiachaparral.com. Quote above: source unknown. Chaparral Photo courtesy of Roxana Villa. Viggo Mortenson Photograph courtesy of: unrealitymag.com