Let’s face it, we all love to smell good! But in a world where perfumes have become ridiculously expensive, smelling divine can sometimes feel like a luxury only a few can afford.

Whether you’re a young executive rushing between meetings, someone working in the service industry, or simply someone who believes that smelling good is part of good personal grooming, finding a fragrance that is both affordable and fabulous isn’t always easy.

And that’s where ELVOIR comes in!

I’ve always believed that smelling good shouldn’t have to cost a fortune. We expect people to be well-groomed, maintain good hygiene and make a great impression, but we also need to give them affordable options to do so. Of course, good hygiene comes first, but a beautiful fragrance is always the perfect finishing touch!

What makes ELVOIR even more interesting is that it’s a homegrown Sri Lankan brand creating fragrances with an international standard of quality. It’s refreshing to see that we don’t always have to look overseas for something luxurious. Sometimes, the best things are being created right here at home.

And behind this fragrant success story is a young entrepreneur, Qaaim Deen, who started with just Rs. 50,000, a curious nose, a few experiments in his father’s office and a dream that eventually took him all the way to France to study perfumery.

From experimenting with Ceylon spices to challenging international perfume brands, Qaaim is proving that Sri Lankan creativity can smell just as divine as anything from Paris!

So, for this edition of Buzz With Danu, I sat down with the man behind ELVOIR to talk about perfumes, passion, entrepreneurship, the price of smelling good and, of course, whether a great fragrance can actually help you find love!

Because darling, life may not always be sweet, but there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t smell fabulous!

1. Qaaim, most people in their early twenties are figuring out what to do with their lives, and you decided to start a perfume brand! Take me back to the beginning. Why perfumes, and did anyone think you had completely lost your mind?

It began with curiosity in my father’s office, surrounded by over 500 raw materials. I started experimenting, and one of my earliest blends came from combining just two of them. When I wore it to university, people kept asking what perfume I was wearing. Their surprise when I told them I had made it myself encouraged me to create some for them too. That fragrance eventually became ICON.

I had always been enterprising and wanted to build something of my own. Perfumery gave that ambition a direction. Starting a fragrance brand at that age was an unconventional choice, and people were understandably curious about where it would lead. As the idea developed, I became increasingly interested in what I could create here in Sri Lanka, particularly with ingredients that reflect our own heritage.

2. You reportedly started ELVOIR with just Rs. 50,000 during one of Sri Lanka’s worst economic crises. That sounds either incredibly brave or slightly crazy! What was going through your head, and how close did you come to giving up?

Probably a little of both! I started with Rs. 50,000 at a time when import restrictions and rising prices were making international fragrances increasingly difficult to access. I saw an opportunity to offer something locally made that people could feel proud to wear.

Of course, the same conditions that created that opportunity also made starting a business difficult. Sourcing raw materials and packaging was a struggle, and a limited budget meant every decision had consequences. There were frustrating moments when progress felt painfully slow. What kept me going was the belief that there was a place for ELVOIR in the market, provided I could get the product right. I had to be patient enough to keep working towards that.

3. From turning your father’s office into a makeshift perfume laboratory to studying perfumery in France, that’s quite a journey! What was the biggest culture shock, and did the French take a young Sri Lankan perfumer seriously?

Studying at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery changed the way I approached fragrance. My early experiments had been driven by instinct and curiosity. In France, I began to understand the technical knowledge and discipline behind creating a balanced composition.

The biggest adjustment was the depth of attention given to individual materials. I was learning to recognise their nuances and understand how they behaved alongside other ingredients, while studying with people whose backgrounds and scent associations were different from my own. Being selected for a cohort of just 12 was a meaningful opportunity, and I took it seriously.

That experience also strengthened my interest in Sri Lankan ingredients. I wanted to bring what I had learnt home and use it to explore the possibilities of materials such as Ceylon black pepper.

4. Let’s get a little personal. They say a person’s fragrance reveals a lot about their personality. So, what does your own signature scent say about you? And are you secretly judging everyone you meet by how they smell?

I’m naturally drawn to bright, fresh fragrances, particularly those with a citrus opening. I like a scent that feels confident and has character, while still being comfortable to wear. I suppose that reflects the impression I like to leave.

And yes, I do notice how people smell! It has become second nature to pick out notes or wonder what someone is wearing. I find their choice interesting because fragrance can express something about their taste, mood or the way they want to present themselves.

5. Be honest, Qaaim. Have you ever been on a date or met someone who looked absolutely fabulous but smelled completely wrong? How does a professional perfumer survive a situation like that?

I’ll be honest, I do notice when someone has made an effort with their fragrance. For someone who spends so much time thinking about scent, it feels like a lovely finishing touch. Turning up to a date without any perfume might disappoint the perfumer in me a little!

But fragrance is deeply personal. Something that smells beautiful on one person may wear quite differently on another. That’s why I always encourage people to try a perfume on their own skin and let it develop before deciding. Finding a fragrance you feel comfortable in is part of making it your own.

6. Sri Lankans love their international brands, and sometimes we assume that anything expensive and foreign must be better. How difficult has it been convincing people that a luxury fragrance made in Sri Lanka can compete with the big international names?

It has been one of our biggest challenges. International brands come with recognition and a reputation that customers already trust. A young Sri Lankan brand has to earn that trust through the product itself and the experience people have with it.

At ELVOIR, we work with French fragrance oils and bring what I learnt in perfumery into the fragrances we develop here. My aim is to offer quality and a considered presentation at a price that makes the experience accessible to more people.

We have also made efforts to engage with the NMRA and the Ministry of Industries to support the development of the local fragrance industry. I want ELVOIR to help build confidence in what Sri Lankan businesses can create.

7. You’re working with ingredients like Ceylon cinnamon, cloves and black pepper. Now, these are things we normally associate with our kitchens! How do you turn something that reminds us of a good curry into something sophisticated and sexy?

That’s where the creativity comes in. A spice has many facets, and the way it is extracted, blended and balanced can reveal qualities that feel very different from its familiar role in food.

Ceylon cinnamon can bring warmth and sweetness, clove can add richness, and black pepper can introduce a lively spicy edge. Their effect depends on the surrounding notes and the proportions you use. A touch of pepper alongside citrus, for example, can give a fragrance a fresh, distinctive character.

What interests me is creating a complete fragrance around those ingredients. It gives me a way to celebrate Sri Lanka’s natural heritage through something people can wear and make part of their everyday lives.

8. Let’s talk about the business of smelling good. Some perfumes cost an absolute fortune! Are we really paying for the fragrance, or are we paying for the fancy bottle, celebrity endorsements and the name printed on the packaging?

You’re paying for several things. Ingredients, formulation, development and production all contribute to the price. Some fragrances contain particularly costly materials, while packaging, marketing and the reputation of the brand can also account for a substantial share of what you pay.

For me, the price becomes worthwhile when the fragrance delivers an experience you enjoy returning to. A beautiful bottle might attract your attention, but the perfume inside is what you live with. At ELVOIR, I want customers to feel that the quality of the fragrance justifies their purchase.

9. You’ve worked on luxury fragrances and special collaborations. Tell me about a moment when something went terribly wrong behind the scenes. A disastrous experiment, an impossible client or a fragrance that smelled wonderful in your imagination but absolutely dreadful in reality!

One of our most frustrating setbacks involved packaging. We had a design that looked promising, but it couldn’t adequately support the weight of the filled perfume bottle. That meant returning to the design and sourcing process to find something that was both attractive and practical.

The difficulty was doing that while keeping the final product affordable. Every improvement had to work within the overall cost. It took months of research, testing and refinement to arrive at a result we were happy with.

That experience taught me how much work sits behind details a customer may never consciously notice. When someone picks up a finished product, everything needs to feel right.

10. Since you understand the psychology of scent, tell me something interesting. Can a perfume actually make someone more attractive, or are we all just hoping that an expensive fragrance will do the flirting for us?

I believe fragrance can make someone feel more attractive, and that confidence can influence the impression they leave. There is something memorable about a scent you begin to associate with a particular person.

It doesn’t have to be an expensive perfume. What matters is that it suits you and feels natural to wear. As for doing the flirting, a fragrance can certainly make an impression, but you still have to provide the conversation!

11. You’ve achieved quite a bit at a young age, but entrepreneurship isn’t always as glamorous as Instagram makes it look. What has been your biggest sacrifice, and has building ELVOIR affected your friendships, relationships or personal life?

Time has been the biggest sacrifice. There have been missed occasions, late nights and periods when the business has taken priority over my personal life. Even when I step away from work, it can be difficult to switch off mentally.

That inevitably affects friendships and relationships. People see the finished products and the milestones, but much of the work happens quietly, through decisions, setbacks and responsibilities that don’t make it onto Instagram.

I’m proud of what I’m building, and I’m also aware that the people around me have had to be understanding about the demands it places on my time.

12. Let’s get slightly controversial. Sri Lanka has some incredibly talented young entrepreneurs, but do you think we genuinely support homegrown businesses, or do we only start celebrating them once they’ve become successful internationally?

I think we’re becoming more supportive, although international recognition still seems to make people look at a local business differently. There are talented people producing good work here who deserve that attention much earlier.

For a young business, support can be as simple as someone trying the product, offering thoughtful feedback or recommending it after a good experience. Those actions can make a real difference while a founder is still establishing the brand.

I would like us to have more confidence in our own potential. Giving a homegrown business a fair chance helps create the conditions for it to improve and eventually reach a wider audience.

13. Finally, Qaaim, perfumes have this incredible ability to bring back memories. If you could create one fragrance that captured your entire journey, from that young boy with a dream to the man building ELVOIR today, what would you call it, and what would it smell like?

I think that fragrance already exists, and it’s called ICON. It takes me back to those first experiments and the reactions I received when I wore it to university. It remains one of ELVOIR’s best-performing fragrances, which makes its place in the collection particularly meaningful to me.

Its connection to Sri Lankan ingredients, including black pepper, also reflects the direction I want to keep exploring. I began by making something I enjoyed wearing, and over time that grew into an ambition to share Sri Lankan creativity and ingredients with a wider audience.

As I develop as a perfumer, I would love to explore new interpretations of ICON. It will always remind me of the curiosity that started this journey.