SIKELIA — How Salvo Scarpaci Turned Sicilian Legends into Perfume and Ceramics

I decided to start with my childhood, and so with the legends.

— Salvo Scarpaci (founder)

Etna breathes fire because a giant is trapped beneath the mountain. On the seabed off Messina, a young man holds up a pillar to keep the island from sinking. SIKELIA turned these two Sicilian stories into perfumes, one built around smoke and ash, the other around salt and wind.

The brand began with Salvo Scarpaci, a Sicilian designer. The island’s legends gave him a place to start composing the fragrances, and its ceramics gave him a way to shape the bottles. The pine-cone stopper carries a piece of the Sicily he wanted the perfume to convey.

Contents

Basic Information
The Founder and the Origins of SIKELIA
SIKELIA’s Approach to Perfumery
1. Pine-cone stoppers and maiolica motifs
2. The volcano in Atma and the sea in Nikos
References

Basic Information

Founded　2021
Founder　Salvo Scarpaci
Roots　Sicily, Italy
Official website　Sikelia Parfums

Sikelia is an ancient Greek name for Sicily.

The Founder and the Origins of SIKELIA

From the perfume trade to childhood legends

Scarpaci worked in perfume production and distribution before starting his own brand. By 2022 he had been in the business for about a decade. He had opportunities to make a perfume about his homeland, but he set the idea aside for years. Jasmine, orange blossom and fig were already familiar scents of Sicily. To broaden that picture of the island, Scarpaci chose the legends he had known since childhood.

I live in a small Sicilian village overlooking the Aeolian Islands.

— Salvo Scarpaci

The cave of Polyphemus and the Strait of Messina, home to Scylla and Charybdis, were part of the landscape in which those stories lived for Scarpaci. His research took him into the island’s folklore and into the materials he could use for the packaging, as well as into fragrance. The idea of bringing scent and form together in a single object became SIKELIA in 2021.

The early fragrances with Fulvio Ciccolo

Fulvio Ciccolo, who formulated the early perfumes, is also based in Sicily. The island’s citrus scents had been part of his life since his teens, and he studied perfumery at ISIPCA in France. He worked in citrus oil quality control before turning to the analysis of aromatic compounds at the University of Messina. He had experience both composing fragrances and studying the compounds that give them their smell.

Scarpaci and Ciccolo began by deciding what scene a perfume would convey. In 2021 SIKELIA exhibited in the emerging-brands area of Pitti Fragranze in Florence. Atma, Nikos and Triskelè were presented under the Acque di Sicilia name. Each of the three early perfumes had a subject of its own, from an eruption and a young diver to the three-legged emblem of the island.

Design collaborations and the debut in Japan

At Packaging Première in Milan in 2025, Scarpaci spoke about designing the fragrance and its container together. That approach makes room for ceramicists, designers, manufacturers and distributors. He also discussed the potential for digital tools such as 3D modelling in future design work.

Every element, from the perfume to the bottle, is designed to tell a story.

— Salvo Scarpaci

In July 2026, SIKELIA made its Japanese debut at a pop-up at Isetan Shinjuku in partnership with Art Lab.

SIKELIA’s Approach to Perfumery

Pine-cone stoppers and maiolica motifs

SIKELIA’s ceramic stoppers are shaped and painted by hand in Caltagirone, Sicily. The pine cone used for Atma and Nikos is a symbol of fertility. Pine-cone ornaments were once placed in newlyweds’ rooms in the hope of a large family. The form on top of the perfume bottle comes from a ceramic object that had a place in everyday life.

In the early range, a satin tassel accompanied the stopper, and the cases took their patterns from Sicilian maiolica. The bottles for Morus and Kalsa draw on the teste di Moro, the head-shaped ceramics associated with Caltagirone. A form tied to local folklore became the part of the bottle you pick up to open it.

The volcano in Atma and the sea in Nikos

The three early fragrances now make up I moti dell’anima. Nikos takes the sea, Atma takes fire, and Triskelè takes the earth. Each starts with a Sicilian story and finds a different aspect of the island’s landscape in it.

Atma takes its subject from Enceladus, the giant imprisoned beneath Mount Etna. In the legend, the smoke and lava that rise from the volcano are his fiery breath. Scarpaci wanted to evoke Etna’s breath in a perfume. Making the smell of burning into a fragrance someone could wear was part of the difficulty.

Reproducing the smell of ash and burning was very difficult.

— Salvo Scarpaci

Atma layers black pepper and a metallic accord over smoke, then moves into incense, vetiver and earthy notes. The composition gives fire the dryness and earthiness of scorched ground.

The Colapesce of Nikos discovers that one of the pillars supporting Sicily is damaged. He stays on the seabed to hold up the island. Salt, pine and bergamot meet aldehydes and sage to evoke the sea air, with the warmth of ambergris and balsamic notes underneath. Atma follows the fire that rises from under the island. Nikos follows the wind and water around it.