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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Posted by Robin
on
5 October 2009
For Iris Silver Mist, for instance, the idea came to him in a Moroccan bookshop that he should look for an iris so refined, so almost grey, that it could be worn by a man in a grey flannel suit as easily as by woman.
— From Seducer of The Senses, a long profile of Serge Lutens in the Financial Times.
Posted by Angela
on
6 July 2009
Maybe more than any other flower used in perfumery, iris is a chameleon. In Chanel No. 19 or Hermès Hiris, iris is as elegant as a beautifully dressed woman in a Mercedes sedan you admire from your seat in the bus. In Le Labo Iris 39, iris is as earthy and inviting as a rundown house with a wild garden and The Decemberists playing in the background. In Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist or Prada Infusion d’Iris, iris is intellectual and absorbing. Annick Goutal Heure Exquise and Guerlain L’Heure Bleue feature moody iris, and Frédéric Malle Iris Poudre and Gianfranco Ferré Ferré are infused with iris that oozes dressing room glamour. Yves Rocher Iris Noir is Party Girl iris.
With so many perfume lines to explore, I never spent much time with Yves Rocher. Yves Rocher fell between the cracks of the high-end niche lines and fêted perfume houses that are so alluring and the drugstore fragrances with their bargain prices and reverse snob appeal…
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