Posted by Angela
on
20 December 2010
Normally, I would keep my distance from a perfume house like XerJoff. I mean, why break my heart? Even XerJoff’s refill bottles start at $270 for 50 ml, and let’s not even get started on the cost of the quartz or Murano bottles. At these prices, Amouage begins to look like a bargain. But fate intervened when XerJoff asked me to help write copy for their new brochure. Not only did I get to sample all of the XerJoff fragrances, I was paid in perfume. Two bottles of it. I chose Irisss and one of the new releases, Richwood.
Over the years, I’ve learned that things that are truly beautiful evoke a physical response. Who hasn’t hovered on the brink of tears at a moving piece of music or gasped at a turn in the road revealing a breathtaking sweep of scenery? Even the mundane can be beautiful that way: Just last night I had a bite of roast lamb with truffled leeks and parsnips that made my heart beat faster. For me, both Irisss and Richwood elicited the sharp, physical thrill of beauty when I first smelled them.
Jacques Flori, the nose behind Etro Messe de Minuit, Etro Shaal Nur, and Amouage Opus IV, composed Irisss Eau de Parfum. Its notes include Florentine iris butter, carrot seed, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang absolute, violet leaves, vetiver, and cedarwood. To me, Irisss is a Monte Carlo showstopper of an iris — almost bigger and more lush than real life. In short, Irisss is to iris as Guerlain Nahéma is to rose…
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Posted by Robin
on
26 August 2010
…I’d rather say that it is a perfume at the center of doubt; that the beam balance never settles between iris and hyacinth in the main accord, which is what makes the composition interesting. — Serge Lutens
It is rare that Serge Lutens says anything about his own fragrances that I find helpful, but in this case — he was doing an interview with Grain de Musc — he has so neatly summed up the experience of wearing his new Bas de Soie (silk stockings) that only a few more details need to be added.
First, the iris is that cosmetics-powder sort of iris, far from the turnips and dirt-caked roots of Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist. The whole fragrance is cold and spiky early on, and very peppery, and the hyacinth is green and slightly bitter; later, Bas de Soie is warmer, softer and sweeter, and as advertised, the two notes seem to weave in and out (or struggle for control, depending on your outlook) for hours without ceasing until it rather suddenly fades away…
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Posted by Robin
on
5 March 2010
Iris is the first new fragrance to join the Donna Karan Collection, which up until now was made up entirely of relaunches from the line’s back catalog. The Collection scents are all done up in opaque black glass; the packaging is handsome if rather functional looking (see below) and the bottles have a nice heft. They’re in limited distribution, making this a sort of niche-from-mainstream kind of line along the lines of the Chanel Les Exclusifs or the Armani Privés, although the prices are more reasonable than that perhaps implies.
On paper, Donna Karan Iris smells at first mostly of iris — not the rooty, bold, turnips-just-pulled-from-the-earth sort of iris à la Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, but the buttery-soft sort of iris that you get in Chanel’s 28 La Pausa, albeit without that elusive Chanel touch that makes so many of the Les Exclusifs fragrances smell like money. Later, Iris takes on a more floral character…
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Posted by Robin
on
26 January 2010
Today’s post came out of a quick email conversation with Kevin, who noted that he thought that Van Cleef & Arpels Bois d’Iris smelled an awful lot like Odori Iris.1 I remembered liking the Odori well enough when I tried it, but it certainly wasn’t love-at-first-sniff like the Van Cleef & Arpels. It seemed worth pulling the sample out to investigate. As so often happens, the one sample you need is the one you can’t find, but I’ll spare you the details of the 2-hour search: I did emerge victorious.
Odori Iris
Odori, if you remember, is an offshoot of the Italian niche line Bois 1920. The six fragrances that launched in 2008 were all supposed to be masculine, as is reflected by the heavy wood packaging.
Odori’s Iris starts out with the dry, rooty iris that I love, but it quickly turns sweet…
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Posted by Robin
on
20 October 2009
When The Body Shop launched White Musk Midnight Iris last month, I was intrigued — not because of the white musk, which isn’t of much interest to me, but because of the iris, which is. So eventually I made my way to The Body Shop to try it.
I’ll start with the verdict: I was pleasantly surprised, but largely because my expectations were not especially high. When Angie reviewed the original White Musk, she noted that “someone wanting a sweet, warm musk could do a lot worse”, but also that it was “compressed and dull” (although in all fairness I should point out that the latter comment was elicited by an on-skin comparison to Serge Lutens Clair de Musc, a considerably more expensive fragrance). That would be about my take on it too: nice enough, not terribly interesting…
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