Capturing the scent of Cyprus

A new perfume sees memory meet musk, inspired by the island

By Christina Michailidis

It’s hard to explain what Cyprus smells like, but if you have been here long enough you begin to recognise it: something between sea breeze and sun-warmed stone, the bloom of jasmine, wild herbs like thyme or rosemary and the sugary pull of sweet confections. It’s not just one scent but a feeling, something you can’t quite name but always feels like home.

This feeling is what Loukoume is built around, a scent that blends sweetness, earthiness and longing. Created by world-renowned perfumer Theodoros Kalotinis in collaboration with Perfumora Boutique, the fragrance was recently launched to mark the boutique’s first anniversary. It bottles up the smell of loukoumi – the beloved confection – and layers it with notes of milk, vanilla and soft florals, evoking a sense of nostalgia, comfort and elegance.   

But Loukoume is more than just a scent it’s also a love story. One that reaches back to ancient Curium, where according to yore, the noblewoman Callista falls in love with humble confectioner Ionas who crafted sweetness itself: loukoumi. Their romance unfolded in secret, through whispered glances and shared promises. Although Callista was promised to another, her heart belonged to Ionas. And on the night before her arranged marriage, she chose love. Beneath the moonlight, Ionas placed a piece of loukoumi on her lips. Sweet, soft, unforgettable. In that moment, the earth trembled, the city slipped into legend, but their memory lingered, carried on by the scent they left behind.

The story of Callista and Ionas may be legend but, for founders of Perfumora Boutique Norbert and Jakub, it captured something real: the way scent can hold emotion long after words fade. With this in mind, wanting to capture not just a fragrance but a feeling, they approached perfumer Kalotinis to help translate their vision into something people could carry with them on their skin. The result is Loukoume, a fragrance with a heart as sweet as Cyprus itself.

Crafting the fragrance wasn’t an easy task. Norbert and Jakub had long admired Kalotinis’ ability to make niche perfumery more accessible; elegant perfumes without the €300 price tag. But this project was different, “You can only create your first fragrance once,” says Norbert. “If it fails, it fails big.”

Translating their vision into scent came with its own set of challenges. Loukoumi doesn’t have a distinct smell, so there was no formula to follow. “We wanted to capture not the flavour, but the feeling,” Norbert says – something soft, sweet and unforgettable. “The problem was that as a non-perfumer it was very difficult to explain how I want the fragrance to smell.” So, he turned to memories and he began describing Cyprus seasons. “The first thing that comes to mind – that I love so much, is neroli in spring, when you are walking down the street and you feel the smell of the orange trees blooming. Then you have frangipani in the summer…”. And of course, the year-round sweetness of loukoumi. All of this had to be communicated across a language barrier, making the task even more delicate.

He said Kalotinis has asked him, ‘How do expect me to recreate something that doesn’t have a typical scent?’. “I told him, please go buy loukoumi, eat it and try and capture the aftertaste – the sweetness, the rose water, the slightly soapy feeling with the milky undertones, this is what I want to recreate.” They built the fragrance layer by layer, exchanging samples until one finally landed. “Goosebumps,” Norbert says. That’s how he knew it was right; he fell in love with it.

Like the myth that helped inspire it, Loukoume unfolds in chapters. It starts off with a light citrusy brightness, “we wanted to bring the feeling of being clean with neroli” Norbert says. Then comes tuberos, “one of the most known aphrodisiacs”, he explains. It then settles into warm undertones of milk and caramel, “the feeling of being grounded and comforted,” like a long embrace. Lastly, there is a note of jasmine, “we wanted to bring a little drama – the positive one. Life can be up and down and sometimes we need a little bit of excitement.” People from all over Cyprus visit the Paphos boutique just to smell it. “They come to our place, and they say, ‘ok give it to us, we want to know how Cyprus smells’.”

The fragrance’s growing popularity has surprised even its creators. The emotional pull of Loukoume seems to transcend age, gender and background. Originally envisioned for the modern woman looking for something special but with a taste for tradition in mind, it now appeals to a broad audience – teenagers, adults, gym goers, CEOs, men and women alike. “Some clients say they get so many compliments from women,” says Norbert. “Others are proud to wear something that is connected with their country”.

And it’s not just Cypriots, expats who have fallen in love with the island also embrace it. “They feel this proudness of living here,” he says. It turned out to be much wider than they imagined and still is. Due to its demand “we have started to ship all over Europe and even the US”. But for those who make their way to the little boutique in Paphos, the message is simple. Cyprus bottled. More than just a scent – a myth, a memory, a feeling of home.