Is it possible to reflect a country with a single scent? One local woman thinks so and has spent the last nine years recreating Eau de Chypre. ZOE CHRISTODOULIDES meets her
A perfume is just supposed to be about a nice smell, right? Wrong. According to Marilena Ioannides, a single smell can evoke much more than a sensual aroma but rather the whole history and culture of a place. In fact, just one scent can easily represent an entire country.
I find this a little hard to believe, but I find it even harder to grasp that our island was so famous for its perfumes back in the 12th Century AD that women from as far as France would do anything they could to spritz themselves with a little ‘scent of Cyprus’.
“Oh yes it’s true. They loved the Mediterranean scents in contrast to the heavier scents of north Europe,” proclaims the bubbly Marilena. The whole story begins way back when Cypriot scents were introduced in France via the crusaders. French nobles named these perfumes “Eau de Chypre” as they had a particular scent which reminded them of the island of Cyprus. A winning combination of Styrax, ladanum and calamus, it was a sensual, intoxicating blend most befitting a perfume originating from the island of the goddess of love.
For the past nine years, Marilena has been busying herself with both research and hands-on activity in France in an attempt to recreate this luscious scent. She hands me an endearing pink and black box as she proudly declares that the perfume is now sold in local shops while also currently promoting the perfume abroad.
Perhaps most interesting about Marilena’s endeavor is that she’s actually an agent for home textiles by profession, a far cry from her passion for the culture of Cyprus, its gastronomy, and scents. “I wanted to look into this perfume for a very long time,” she proclaims. “It’s part of our culture. I love getting hold of age old traditions and making them part of everyday life. And if you have a perfume it can always be carried with you.”
And here’s the next interesting fact: Cyprus was famous for its perfume production as far back as 2000 BC with the oldest perfume lab on the island discovered near Pyrgos in Limassol. Perfumed oils were manufactured in rituals worshiping Aphrodite, using olive oil as a base and a mixture of essential oils including coriander.
The more one digs up the past, the more interesting facts unravel about its aromatic history with archeological evidence pointing towards the trade of perfumes between Cyprus, Egypt and Greece in the ancient world.
As the years went by, Cyprus perfumes became more popular and by the 12th century they were soon exported from Cyprus to France, and soon enough, French perfumeries were intent on creating their own ‘Eau de Chypre’ scents. Written sources indicate that it was hailed as a most wonderful perfume well reputed all over Europe as an aphrodisiac.
Not just limited to bottles of Eau de Chypre, various powders for the hair and room fragrances were also made using the same aromatic base but adding smells like iris, jasmine and orange blossom to the concoction. As the perfume story progressed, so the Eau de Chypre story evolved.
In the 18th century Ferdinand Dejean added oak moss as a new ingredient to the perfume, something that boosted its aphrodisiac properties. It goes without saying that the smell went down a treat.
Further developments then took place in the 19th century with the creation of Chypre of Guerlain in 1850, topped of by the renowned perfume Chypre by Francois Coty in 1917. “It became such a famous smell, it was a huge success,” says Marilena. “Some of our own grandmothers and great grandmothers would have worn it.”
To recreate all this and make a contemporary version of the scent, Marilena recently travelled to France and joined forces with a number of professionals and leading perfume makers in the country. “It was all such a great experience and they were very professional with me although I come from a completely different background dealing with textiles,” she says. “The biggest difficulty was the amount of time that it took to complete the whole process and all the travelling back and forth from France.” But Marilena doesn’t regret a minute of it, passing her enthusiasm onto her co-workers and now describing it “like a dream come true.”
She then hooked up with the Cypriot-Canadian Roland Chrysomilidi who designed the logo of the perfume; a black outline of a feminine silhouette with no detail, maintaining a veil of mystery while expressing elegance and femininity.
“Mirabelle is a modern version of Eau de Chypre and its purpose is to revive the wealth of history and culture behind the perfume,” explains Marilena. “It’s very sensual and very feminine, invoking memories of other worlds, a mysteriously powerful and alluring scent.” With a base of sensual aromas of cedar wood and musk, it also contains rose, patchouli and violet with top note of spicy saffron creating a sensual elegance.
And how did she come up with the name for the perfume I wonder? Turns out, that it takes us back to how the whole story began. “Mirabelle was a young lady in 12th century France. Her beloved Knight returns to her with a perfume from Cyprus and Mirabelle is captivated and calls it Eau de Chypre,” says Marilena. Although many different versions of the sensual scent have been created since, local shop shelves are now lined with Marilena’s contemporary interpretation of this mythical sensation.
Mirabelle Eau De Parfum is available from Beauty Line stores island wide, the Leventis Municipal Museum in Nicosia, and Larnaca Airport. €36 for a 50 ml bottle
