Mythos

Mythos is a Greek natural-cosmetics brand built around olive oil, owned by the Athens personal-care company Flax Natural Products. Its products centre on certified organic olive oil from the Koroneiki variety grown near Koroni in the Peloponnese, combined with Greek aromatic plants and herbs, and span face, body, hair and hand-and-foot care.

The brand-level founding date is not the same as its parent's. Flax records 2002 as the year it created Mythos, originally for the Greek tourism market, describing itself as one of the first companies in the category of "Greek-olive-oil-based cosmetics" [4]. The parent company itself dates to 1966 [3], so some summaries give that earlier year for the brand; the 2002 date refers to Mythos specifically.

Mythos belongs to Flax Natural Products, a family business founded in 1966 in a small workshop on Strefi Hill in the Exarchia district of Athens, where it began by making vegetable sponges from loofah [4]. Over the following decades Flax moved into olive-oil-based cosmetics, launching the CleanSkin line in 1999 and then Mythos in 2002 [4]. The company says the brand was conceived for the tourism market and helped open up a new category of olive-oil cosmetics in Greece. No individual founder is named for Mythos as a sub-brand; the parent company is run by the Vavvas family, with Tassos Vavvas as its current head.

The name is drawn from the Greek word for a legendary story passed down by word of mouth, which the company links to what it calls an age-old Greek system of thought and values.

Flax created Mythos in 2002 [4]. In 2007 the company relocated production to a new facility in the industrial area of Tripolis built with green-building features, and in 2019 it relaunched the range under the name "Mythos 100% OLIVE" [4]. The retailer The Olive Tree, which carries the brand, lists more recent additions including a snail-secretion line and a Labdanum series [1]. In 2024 Flax was named "Plant Based Brand of the Year" at the Plant Based Awards [3].

Mythos is one of several personal-care brands owned by Flax Natural Products, alongside lines such as LifoPlus, CleanSkin and Body Touch [5]. The company is headquartered at Tavros in Athens, with manufacturing in Tripolis.

Mythos presents itself as, in the company's words, "a bridge between two worlds; that of ancient experience and that of scientific research," pairing Greek heritage with olive-oil chemistry. Its design concept draws on the ancient Greek amphora, the large two-handled ceramic vessel once used to transport oil and wine, with the range's product groups represented as broken pieces of such a vase.

The brand is positioned in the natural and Mediterranean-skincare space at an accessible price point. According to its Danish distributor, the products avoid conventional preservatives such as parabens, as well as synthetic colours and genetically modified plants [10]. Flax states that its cosmetics are made chiefly from natural raw materials and are not tested on animals.

The core ingredient across the range is olive oil, described by the company as 100% certified organic oil of the Koroneiki variety sourced from an olive grove in Koroni. Flax says this is combined with the aromatic botanicals of the Greek landscape to form antioxidant and moisturising formulas; its own product pages put the count at more than 50 plants and herbs [6], while the retailer The Olive Tree states more than 30 [1]. The company attributes the oil's skincare role to its content of vitamins A, D, K and E along with phenols and carotenoids, and its formulas to active compounds it identifies as oligopeptides and polyphenols.

Beyond the main olive line, the brand fields a Mythos Aloe range pairing organic aloe vera with the olive oil base, plus the more recent snail-secretion and Labdanum lines. Product testing and certification are attributed to laboratories and bodies including SGS, QACS and VDTÜeV.

Editorial coverage of Mythos is limited. A Greek pharmacy tourism guide lists it among Greek skincare products, describing it as "a niche brand inspired by Greek mythology" [11]. The most substantial recognition sits at parent level: Flax received the "Plant Based Brand of the Year" award at the 2024 Plant Based Awards [3].

Mythos is an active brand with a European and Mediterranean focus. Flax exports to more than 15 countries and reaches the Nordic market through the Danish distributor Incosmetics, based in Silkeborg [10]. The company reports environmental measures including ISO 14001 environmental-management certification and membership of the Greek "Green Dot" recycling scheme, and says it has recycled more than 140 tons of packaging over a decade.