CYPRINUM 6 ML

It's as if you're smelling and touching warm, luxurious, sun-kissed antique wood.

Cyprinum is a timeless, gender-neutral fragrance that creates an intimate experience of scent that unfolds on the skin like the fiery, mottled winged creatures of Herodotus' stories.

A radiant swirl of cinnamon and cardamom contrasts with the hot calamus, creating a slow, all-enveloping sensation of warm luxury. The heart of the fragrance consists of cypress attar, crowned by lilies, gently spread over a base of myrrh and labdanum. This ambery composition is then intertwined with an opulent aromatic wine - a classical antique recipe.

Cyprinum solid historical perfume was re-created in 2012 by a perfumer Laimė Kiškūnė. Later in 2017 perfumer reformulated this fragrance to bring it even closer to the original formula which is thought to be around 4000 years old. Employing means of philosophy, philology, botany, and archaeology Laimė Kiškūnė is dedicating many years to study formulas of historical perfumes. Cyprinum is thought to be the oldest known perfume, based around cyprossubstance which according to archaeologists most likely was Lawsonia. Cyprinum perfume was mentioned in the texts of Dioscórides, Pliny the Elder, Teofrasto and found in sarcophaguses of Ptolemaic in Egypt. Formula fragments and making technology descriptions are found in the research of 20th century Egyptologists and archeologists as well.

Top notes: cardamom, cinnamon
Heart notes: cypros attar, calamus, lily
Base notes: myrrh, labdanum, aromatic wine

This story is about how with the help of fragrances and perfumes, Laimė Kiškūnė dared to go on a fascinating journey through space and time.

How were perfumes made in antiquity? Which olfactory notes were characteristic in them? What were the technological challenges that needed to be addressed by the perfumers of that time?

The hardest part of reconstructing historical perfumes is not finding fragments of formulas or descriptions of technologies. These can be found in the ancient authors Dioscurides, Pliny the Elder or later Arabic texts. Archaeologists and Egyptologists also describe it. The challenge is to find the aromatic materials that might have been used to produce these historic Egyptian perfumes. The search for natural aromatics can indeed be called a historical-aromatic adventure.

In the classical antique composition of Cyprinum the predominant fragrant ingredient was cypros. Archaeologists have come to an agreement that most likely it was Lawsonia. Such a testimony is contained in the writings of Dioscurides and Pliny the Elder.

The great ancient botanist Theophrastus wrote that ‘Fragrant seeds of cypros are blue-black like the night. The petals of cypros are glowing white fire –like the day.’

Homer in his hymns to Aphrodite sings about the goddess who perfumed herself with it, when she was going to seduce Anchises. And how this divine fragrance helped her to win a beauty contest against Athena and Hera.

Cyprinum is one of the oldest known perfumes.

INCI: Prunus amygdalus dulcis oil, Moringa oleifera oil, Parfum (100% natural), Candelilla Cera; linalool*, eugenol*, benzyl alcohol*, benzyl benzoate*, limonene*, coumarin*, citronellol* – * naturally found components.

Solid perfume CYPRINUM is created with 100% natural ingredients.

These are rare, collectible, experimental ingredients; extracts and essential oils distilled in small farms from wild plants and renewable raw materials in small quantities. The perfumer selects these aromatic substances herself and buys them directly from the producers.