Nobody was more excited than I when Hermes announced the release of Iris Ukiyoé in the Hermessence series, with the scent allegedly based on the iris blossom rather than orris.  Orris butter – the source of “iris” in many iris scents – is made from the iris rhizome, which is akin, sort of, to making “rose” scents by macerating the roots of a rosebush rather than its flowers.

Fragrances that purport to be rose-scented are all over the place in terms of quality (and smell) but there’s a general concept of “rose-iness” that most reasonable people could likely agree on, be it spicy or more powdery or with animalic accents.  Orris fragrances are lovely; my personal favorite is probably Chanel 28 La Pausa.  Lovely as they are, however, they don’t really smell like the blooming flower of an iris.  It’s one of my great unfulfilled desires in the perfume world.

Many people are unaware that some (but not all) iris blossoms even have a scent, or that irises might be cultivated for their aroma.  My own introduction to the smell of iris took place in New Mexico in the early 1990s, when I was invited along by a curmudgeonly neighbor – who had a fantastic garden – to visit an “iris ranch” half an hour outside of town.  For a few short weeks a year during their bloom, you could come to look, sniff, and purchase the rhizomes, which would then be dug up and delivered later.  I didn’t know a thing about irises, but it sounded like fun, so I shrugged and said, sure.

It was a typical high desert day, sunny and dry.  We bumped down an unpaved road, parked in the dusty lot and trooped toward the uneven plots carved out of the countryside, surrounded by chamisa and cactus.

And then the smell of those acres of iris blooms hit me.

Irises don’t all look or smell the same, any more than roses do.  Some iris varieties are short and dainty; some are tall and bearded and almost obscenely lush.  But the intense low hum of bees and the perfume of thousands of blooms in that hot, still August air will stay with me forever.  The generalized iris smell is, to my nose, a unique combination of the spiciness of carnation, the sweetness of honeysuckle, and the deep, rooty richness of magnolia and dirt, with a hint of silver spoon.  There is simply nothing else like it.  I was transfixed.  These things … they smell like that? How did I not know this?

I bought a bunch of them to plant.  They grow like the dickens in Santa Fe, thrive on sun and neglect, and they are one of the few things I am sorry I left behind, although where I live now the deer eat the blossoms so aggressively it’s probably for the best.

So, Iris Ukiyoé, with the scent of the iris blossom.  How could I resist?  Fingers crossed, I bought one of the small 15ml travel bottles that have popped up on eBay, figuring I was overdue for an unsniffed purchase.

This scent doesn’t draw any immediate comparisons to any existing iris scents I’m aware of.  It has a deep, rose-y sweet-sourness and a watery lushness right from the get-go, without smelling like a rose.  It seems both “warm” (floral) and “cool” (vegetal), and there’s something about it that makes me think of going out barefoot onto the wet grass right at dawn.  It is lightly spicy, and like Vanille Galante it has quite a bit of a dewy, watery freshness.

And this is, unfortunately, where things sit for me.  I’m going to quote from Octavian’s extensive, enthusiastic review here:

“But this time, Jean Claude Ellena did not consider the particular scent of a specific orris flower, nor did he invent a new ‘orris flower’ type. It was his olfactory research, the emotion and the surprise of a warm scent set in a cold majestic blue flower. It is about those ephemeral moments of emotion captured on the petal with a drop of dew.”

To me (and I am very much in the minority on this one so far), it is mostly about that water-color impressionism, and not so much iris – or any particular flower at all, really.  I was told by a perfumer once to avoid fresh notes and aquatics.  Iris Ukiyoé seems to confirm that advice.  But if you’re looking for a different take on iris, and not expecting to be beaten over the head with it (this is a Hermessence after all) Iris Ukiyoé is a new direction that doesn’t conjure the clichés of violets or damp earth.  In the meantime, for those of you who’ve never smelled an iris and wonder what I’m obsessed with — next time you pass a tall stand of iris in bloom, on the street or in a neighbor’s garden, bend down and stick your nose in there.   If they’re scented, you may develop an obsession of your own.

Sample source: 15ml travel bottle which (full disclosure) has already gone to a more deserving home.

Image: Iris Flowers and Grasshopper, woodblock, Hokusai (1760 – 1849), source: wikimedia

March

by Anita

This is not a perfume review but I did sniff a buncho scents while I was gathering the info, if that counts for anything…

1999– I am twitching down Michigan Avenue in a nip-waisted suit and Maud Frizon 4” heels, grey, with little slate-blue Mercury wings at the back of the vamp.  A little girl comes around the corner, stops with a ‘whoa’…and then attempts to imitate my Betty Boop wiggle.    The heels, the nip-waist suit….the essence of girly fashion at the close of the boomin’ 90s.

2009 – I am with a pal, stomping down Michigan Avenue, wearing comfy tailored pants with comfy/cute side-tie oxfords – the following ensues:

sfx  :“clipclopclipclopclipclop”

I whip around and my pal says “what’s wrong?”

Me: where are the horses!?

Pal (funny look): “uh…..no horses”

Then it hits me – it is the sound of women’s high heels crossing Michigan Avenue.

I am mortified.  But it is funny. I’ve only lived a rural life for 4 years and already my frame of reference has changed  regarding footwear.   Very little about my life now allows for the high heels of 5 years ago.  My highest heel now are my wonderfully comfy (that word again) court shoes with a 2-inch heel…and even those I have to consciously decide to wear.  And…you know…?  it’s okay!    On Michigan Avenue/Oak Street in Chicago last week, in my comfy oxfords, I took a look at what women are wearing and what’s on display at Barneys and Nordies and the like – it’s definitely the Season of the Flat Boot.  Boots everywhere and, probably because it is Chicago and winter is imminent, most every boot is flat – or, at best, with a solid, stacked or short, wedge heel.   Hermes’ window has an obscenely gorgeous pair of riders that cost more than my company netted last quarter (somebody PLEASE wear those to a horse barn near me.  Please.), along with a luxe mini-saddle that would make a cute bonnet for one of my Percherons.    Barneys has a python”riding’  boot.  Uh, okay.  I had a pair of green python boots once.  They were about as durable as tissue paper.  Nowadays I’m mostly about leaving the skin on the snake.  YMMV and that’s okay by me.  But you won’t be seeing these on Chicago streets, come January.

Manolo and Christian are still flying the Four Inch Flag but I didn’t see a lot of women in heels.  But there were  Lots of leggings tucked into faux-riding boots.  Pirate boots with bunchy, tucked-in jeans – an odd combo but maybe the leggings/pirate thing are just a bit too Jack Sparrow?  Either way,  90% of the Oak Street fashionistas were in flat boots.    Tall boots.  TALL.   Not an ankle boot in sight, except on the shelves.  Those’ll come later, when nobody wants to ruin those pirates in the snow and slush.

It was intriguing, too, to watch the difference in how heel height affects stride.  The Manolo contingent kept the Boop goin’ – I don’t know if it’s possible to not Boop it, unless your feet are killing you, in which case it just looks painful, with a side order of ‘Ow’.  But  on G.P. the nature of a high heel does the Boop for you, whether you like it or not.  Hard to stride in heels, at least it is for me.

So how do fashionistas rock a Boop-equivalent in a low-heeled or flat boot?  Well, I don’t know if they practice but most everyone I saw on Oak Street were workin’ this elongated stride/glide, like a modified Sloane Ranger or Llamas on Madison.   If you’re tall and slender it’s a slam-dunk, elegant look, like you just left your Arabian with the groom.  If you’re short it’s a fiercer version, but can be just as sexy.  What’s really noticeable about all flat/low-heeled boot wearers (and I guess most all flats in general) is this sense of elongation and assertiveness in the walk.  Not as overtly sexy as the Boop but sensual, the way cashmere pjs can be more sensual than the satin robe/marabou mules.    Not dissin’ the satin, mind you; it’s just that my feet can’t take those mules anymore. Alas, I’m not in the market for any more boots, having enough riding/steel toe/stall-stompin’ variations to last awhile – but if I were, this would definitely be My Year!   The Boots is Cuuute!!

So what’s going on your feet (and upward) this Season?  Are you going for the over-the-knee pirate look? The equestrienne? The Shawty? I’m loving the Tall Boot!  Is the trend different where you are?  Paris? DC? New York? LA? Enquiring minds and all that!   I think I might be a tad too ‘too’ to pull off the tuck-in style these days, but let me drop a dress size before the Season is out and…….

Nejma has done a very cool thing and sent us a bunch of Puro samples to give away to you guys, plus they threw in one 1.4 ounce bottle.  I’m a huge fan of companies that get the word of mouth concept through the online perfume machine, so I love to see you all support them, especially when they also produce a great scent, which they did.

So I’m going to do a drawing for the bottle when I get back (first part of December), but the easiest way to do the sample giveaway is just the first 15 commenters will get one, and then I’ll draw 8 more people at random just so you aren’t left out completely if you read us later in the day.  Now, I can’t send any of this out until the first part of December, so don’t be impatient!

From the Press release:

“On a recent stay in Havana, Christian Bousidan, co-creator of the Nejma perfume brand and great lover of cigars and rum, experienced a magical moment that transcended time; a moment so indefinable and unique that he wanted to share it with others, but could not find the words to do so… If words are not enough, fragrance must rise to the challenge. This unique feeling has been transformed into a perfume that takes us to another place, another time, like an epic novel.

Seated by the Malecón on the terrace of Havana’s Grand Hotel Nacional de Cuba, a Partagas Cigar in one hand and a glass of 7-year-old Matusalem in the other, listening to the sounds of Trova played on an old gramophone by the Buena Vista Social Club, a unique and magical moment was born and time stood still…”

Notes are rum, lime, mint, cactus sap, prickly pear, cinnamon, cigar, mahogany and vetiver.  Yeah, it trends masculine’ish, but tobacco scent lovers need not worry, it’s perfectly chick-wear-friendly.  A great citrus open to lighten things up before the nice, dark tobacco notes with a great cinnamonkick hit.  There’s nothing ground-breaking here, but it’s a well-made tobacco scent, very wearable.  I haven’t tried the Puro Intense, but have read that it is even better.

As far as availability, it is exclusively at Aedes.  But!  I read on Basenotes they launched last year, but that distributor was selling to the gray market, so there are bottles available at discounters still, older stock, which I assume will dry up soon enough.  The new distributor is doing a much tighter distribution. Exclusively at Aedes until Thanksgiving, then it goes to  Luckyscent, Bergdorf, Parfumerie Nasreen in Seattle, Jacqueline in San Francisco and Perfume Shoppe in Vancouver, Canada  $95 for the 1.4 ml bottle, which is really a pretty nifty size.

For those not my friend on Facebook, the Indian Visa arrived on Wednesday!!!  I”m officially set. As soon as I got it, I pulled out my suitcase and my very organized list and have everything packed but a handful of items that I need to use until Saturday.  Verizon seems to think I’ll have some coverage or maybe good coverage while I’m there since it’s CDMA-ville, and they totally hooked me up so my iPad will use my Droid’s internet service, if available.  I hope to post some photos and updates on Facebook, if I can get to it, and will of course write about the whole trip to share with you guys when I get back.

Patty

Note: Thanks everyone for playing along in the week-long Signature Scent Challenge!  I have a few final thoughts, but that post isn’t written yet and this one is. — March

In a time when the generic dullness of a lot of new, department-store-level perfume releases makes my eyes bleed, I’ve gotten strangely – yea, perhaps even irrationally – fond of any effort that seems even a little quirky or unusual in the perfume area. The Anthropologie chain cultivates an image of … what, whimsical, hand-knit faux-French outsider maximalism? I’m sure that image is crafted with the same corporate precision that brings you Coach and J. Crew.  I’m not an idiot.  Nonetheless, I like Anthropologie.  I like to go in their cluttered store and browse for trinkets on dreary winter days.  Their clothes are fun but mostly don’t work on me.  Their housewares, however, particularly their dishes and glassware, are often wonderful and sometimes quite a bargain to boot.

Anthropologie pleases me because it stocks odd fragrances, some of which are made specifically for the brand and others which I mostly don’t see anywhere else.  They have the TokyoMilks and the Rather Novel Collection from Givaudan I blogged about awhile ago, as well as some of the Histoires de Parfums.  (They also have a few forgettable floral-musky scents for people who like packaging more than perfume.  Lollia, Happ & Stahns… get the joke on the second one?)   Online I note they stock four SIPs, and Ineke, although not in our local store.

And now they have the By the Creators of Le Labo collection of five scents, featuring a $62 EdP, a $32 candle, and a $28 solid perfume:

“A collaboration between Anthropologie and Fabrice Penot and Edouard Roschi, founders of New York cult fragrance house Le Labo, this fragrance envelops you in one of five historically inspired scents that pay tribute to the era of perfumery when artisans crafted small batches using the highest quality natural ingredients … choose from parfum in a vessel inspired by old apothecary bottles or concrete parfum packaged in tins inspired by turn-of-the-century measuring weights.”

Belle Du Soir: “musky and rich, neroli, water lily and gardenia float above notes of cedar, sandalwood and patchouli (SPICE).” March says: not at all what I was expecting from those notes. Starts off smelling very citrusy, drying down into expensive soap along the lines of Maria-Farina Extra-Vieille from Roger & Gallet.  Nice, but you might as well get the soap.

Bouquet Blanc: “a decadent floral composition of cassis, bergamot, jasmine, tuberose and vetiver (FLORAL)” March says: A pleasingly indolic mostly-jasmine that lasted two days, minimal development.

Chant De Bois: “a femme-woodsy combination of bergamot, grapefruit, pink pepper, patchouli and cedar (SPICE)”  March says: This is the one you’re supposed to buy your man, I guess.  The nice, citrus/pepper top dries down quickly into a generic man-scent.  I’m going to mock this one a bit.  It’s perfectly pleasant.  But for $60, you could do so much better.  Go buy him Guerlain Vetiver.  Or Dior Eau Sauvage.  Or … (insert something else interesting here.)

Orange Discrete: “a clean citrus blend of petigrain, bergamot, mandarin zest and orange blossom mixed with vetiver, cedar and musk (FRUIT)”  March says: I’d dismissed this in five minutes as a too-soapy, generic neroli.  The drydown however is interesting – salted orange segments with lots of ground black pepper.  Not entirely pleasant, but peculiarly compelling.  I could see suddenly deciding I had to have this on a wintry December day (at which point they’ll be sold out, naturally.)

Poudre D’Orient: “exotic aromas of violet leaves, patchouli, vanilla and suede musk (FRESH)” March says: My inner cynic tells me this fragrance’s density is created with a huge overdose of a single molecule, something they buy for $50 a drum, and I’m just uneducated enough that I’m not in on the joke.  You know what? My inner cynic can go suck an egg.  I love this stuff, which smells like an unholy alliance between the violet-green of (new) Jolie Madame and the kind of amber-musk sweetness found in Gaultier2.  Neither powdery nor exotic, and not fresh, either, thank God.  Wish I had some new JM to test it against.  Don’t spill it on anything you can’t wash, because it never goes away.

I’m not loving the packaging on these, although I’m hard pressed to say exactly why.  They have that Le Labo brown bag thing going on, cross-pollinated with the Anthropologie whimsy.  The cheap minimalism of the Le Labo “lab” packaging I’ve gotten used to.  At least I’m not whining that they spent all the money on the cap design, right?  But this glue-on label with its fake-aged apothecary look, and that sorta-Bakelite cap (on a shiny new amber bottle that looks like it came from L’Occitane) didn’t win my heart.  The candles I have no opinion about, and I’ve not tried the perfume solids.

At the end of the day? These are fine for what they are.  They’re a bit light on their feet, coming from Le Labo, although thankfully none of them is insipidly sweet, and none of them (with the exception of Chant de Bois) smells like it came from Macy’s. For less money ($48, or $10 for the perfume solid pen), I’d rather have one of the Rather Novel Collection, I think they’re more interesting scents, particularly the mint/chamomile 1856 Darjeeling, or the red tea-infused Cape of Good Hope, both testers of which had been stolen.  Again.

Fragrance source: tried at the store, multiple times, without incident.

March

Okay, I admit it, I’m impressed by y’all’s fortitude and sticktoitiveness on that 7-day same-scent challenge.  I would have nose-dived off the scented cliff by Day 3.  It was fun reading through what many of you learned.  For me, wearing the same scent every day does result in the same anosmia to that scent, which makes me a little afraid of what I smelled like back in the days when I only had one bottle at a time and likely kept putting on more scent each day in an effort to smell it.

Gag.  I humbly apologize to everyone around me that I offended with Cinnabar back in the ’70s.

I nervously drum my fingers on my desk waiting for my India visa to arrive – you know, the one I expedited because I put it off too long, but still more than a week than I needed for it to get here.  Um, I need it by Friday – I guess a Saturday morning delivery would be okay too. So it’s daily calling and nervousing until they give me an overnight delivery tracking number.  I’m amusing myself by trying a flanker!

Why, you ask, when I normally hate flankers?  Because it has a pretty name, and I have loved the original version and the one flanker they came out with for it and the parfum version.  Hermes Eau Claire des Merveilles has some vague description of the notes like vanilla and powdery, which is pretty horrifying to a nonpowder person like me and more so when I love that upside down ambergris beauty, Eau des Merveilles and even more the richer, stronger, lots more peppery Parfum des Merveilles.  Eau des Merveilles has always been the scent I point to for how to do something mainstream that has a little oddity interest to it.  Elixir is just a nice treatment of gourmand’ish layered over the top. I love all three of those.

Claire?  Wanted to love it.  Don’t hate it, but it seems like a weak sister. It is a little powdery, which i didn’t hate, lighter, almost all of the pepper has been whooshed off.  I’m just left trying to figure out why I should care about this scent.  Just when I’m thinking it’s a less grown-up version of the original that would work well on a younger woman, it whooshes away entirely.

The good news is, I dug around in my drawers and found all my beloved Merveilleses and am all tipsy falling in love with them again.  If I could have included them as one scent in that scent challenge, this would have worked for me.

So I have my leftover carded spray sample of the Claire for a commenter to take off my hands- which I got from the Hermes boutique.  BTW, they mostly confirmed the new Iris Hermessence rumored debut in November to be highly accurate.  They leave wiggle room  in case it gets delayed.  What I’ve read is they are supposed to be zeroed in on the iris flower instead of the root, which should make March beyond ecstatic, as well as me, if they get it right.  Anyone sniff it yet?

Okay, back to pacing about my visa, unless anyone knows someone at the consulate in Houston?

Patty