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The Odyssey has been retold more times than anyone can count. It started as an oral tradition—so don’t let anyone tell you listening to audiobooks doesn’t count, because Homer’s original audience didn’t read it, either. They heard the story night after night, adding their own flourishes, every telling alive and adaptive. Then the translations came: Latin, medieval, modern, in languages from around the globe, then stage adaptations, novels, films. Each translation still inspires a riot—just ask Emily Wilson, the translator behind the 2017 retelling who has been accused of making the classic “too woke,” and whose approach is rumored to have inspired the 2026 Christopher Nolan cinematic adaptation. Nolan’s film iteration comes out today, and the theaters have already been packed since midnight, with some audiences arriving in clothes inspired by the film’s aesthetic, and Zendaya’s latest angelic premiere look alone has inspired a sea of glowy, fresh-faced sirens into the theaters.
But the story’s reach doesn’t stop there. Perfumers have been translating Homer into scent for centuries, and the past decade alone has given us some truly remarkable interpretations. If you’re planning to see the new film in theaters and want a truly immersive sensorial experience, here are the perfumes that will bring the story to your skin.
The Anointment Oil
The first choice is Personne by ICONOFLY, a natural perfume based on the original text, research done by Laurent Dubreuil, professor of comparative literature, and a voyage by artist Laurent Derobert. Perfumer Alexandre Helwani is a cartographer of smell, translating a huge bounty of information. Each accord represents different stories and chapters. There is a litany of stories to sniff: wild laurel and rosemary and roses, the scent of shipwreck and hemp and pear—each minute brings a vignette of characters, and it is as enveloping as the original text. You smell the beeswax and kelp of the Sirens, the fig and fenugreek of the lands, violet leaf and oakmoss. Helwani was given a long list of materials he had to include, and most were harvested from the land mentioned. When you smell the sea, it is because Derobert went on a voyage to capture the water from the Mediterranean for this. The 2,700-year-old story inspired a voyage by Victor Beyard in 1927, which inspired another voyage for this scent: a continuous act of reinterpretation. All good stories find new ways to live again.
What makes this fragrance memorable is not just the complex story of monsters battled, but how Helwani manages to insert the human transformation. You do not observe the journey. You step into Odysseus’ presence through Helwani’s Anointing Accord: his particular combination of materials that represent the sensation of Odysseus meeting Nausikaa.
In The Odyssey, when Nausikaa bathes the blistered, feral Odysseus after her maidens have fled, she anoints him with olive oil. He transforms from a nobody, forgotten and alone, into somebody, cared for in a fragile moment. Helwani chose this moment as his opportunity for artistic license. “As I was working on the fragrance, I couldn’t help but think there was something missing—It was a concoction of herbs, aromatic but missing the soul. When you read it, Homer doesn’t dwell on the human smells of the journey—it’s almost too obvious,” says the perfumer. “But the human level is central. If we stuck to the herbs, we would have missed the story, because when Odysseus washes to shore, that is when the story begins. It is the central moment where he is recognized for who he is destined to be. I used an accord close to tonka, slightly grainy to represent his skin, completely cracked by sun and sea salt. The combination represents the human breadth in the text.”
In French, personne means both nobody and someone. It is that transformation that names the perfume, and it is that transformation that summarizes the text. We become who we are in the pursuit of trying to find our way to the people we love—it is a trial we all experience.
The Siren Scent
There are other compelling fragrances that represent different aspects of Odysseus’ famous journey, too. Carthusia’s Ligea La Siren Eau de Parfum is a sensual citrus floral named after one of the Sirens who tried in vain to charm Odysseus. This opens with mandarin and lemon, lavender and incense. It’s a pretty, classically feminine scent with an elegant opening and a warmer heart. If you have a fondness for the classic Guerlain Shalimar, you will likely find something familiar to love in this, too: they share a powdery posture.
The Painterly Perfume
A different interpretation of the story comes not from the text, but from a painting inspired by the text. Inspired by the 19th-century painter Leon Belly, Argos Fragrances Odyssey The Legend Return is a new extrait from a Dallas-based perfumery. It opens with bergamot, lemon, and clary representative of the Mediterranean winds over sea, then tuberose and lily of the valley to represent temptations. And the base is the warmth of returning home: guaiac wood, vetiver, vanilla, and musk. The bottle itself tells the story of the painting, with a detailed engraving of Odysseus battling Poseidon. It is as much a framed piece of art as an olfactory one.
The Myth Makers
I would be remiss to forget the many delicate perfumes that perfume house Hellenist puts out, all entirely inspired by Greek legends and myths. Achilles is the mirror and peer to Odysseus in classical literature, caught between glory and homecoming—and of course, he also inspired a beautiful perfume called le chant d’Achille. The perfume interpretation is inspired by the retelling by Madeline Miller. “I wanted to capture the sensuality of the text, [and] envisioned a chameleon-like orange blossom on a bed of musks, alternately virginal and warrior-like. I decided to pair it with the immortelle flower, with its characteristic warmth and salty accents, a nod to the Mediterranean and a playful reference to the vulnerability of Achilles’ heel,” explains perfumer Alexandra Carlin. Immortelle is woven in both Personne and Achilles—a grand unifying representation of masculine sweat and virility that also smells delicious. Hellenist has also considered the myth of Artemis and the Lotus Eaters in their oeuvre.
Calypso’s Scent
Calypso holds Odysseus on her island for seven years, with the offer of immortality. Her allure has captured perfumers’ attention across decades: Lancôme’s Calypso (1990) by perfumer Dominique Ropion opens with tuberose and ylang-ylang, a lush, narcotic night-bloom. A more recent—and still available—interpretation of the Greek seductress’s legend is Robert Piguet’s Calypso Eau de Parfum. And technically, this is a new version of a 1950 interpretation. As I said before, all good stories get a retelling eventually. This one was reformulated by perfumer Aurelien Guichard, who is now the founder of Matière Première. His Calypso is a lush radiance of roses, with amber and patchouli and suede.
Perfume is an act of translation of an idea into an experience—little wonder that perfumers are so smitten with the classics like The Odyssey, and that it has occupied our cultural landscape in seemingly endless iterations. Every version says something new, special, and different. And so do these scents.
