Woo Hoo Posse! For those that celebrate, Merry Christmas, for those that don’t I think we can all fervently wish for Peace On Earth. I figured that by now you’d all be sick of Xmas anyway so I can tell you it’s warm here in Sydney, my BFF Kath and 3 generations of her family will be coming for lunch and by the time anyone in the USA starts reading this we will be finished lunch and lying around in a food coma, desultorily picking at the various cakes, cheeses and fruit left on the table and absolutely unable to make any valuable conversational contribution other than grunts and groans. I am probably still shimmering in a cloud of CHANEL No 5, my choice for the 2015 festivities, and it will be my vintage spray Parfum in the bakelite and new to me vintage EdC bought from the Linda Beth Ross estate (still thinking of you Linda with love).
So let’s talk something new that’s taken over my sniffing lately. I bought a 2ml spritz decant from Surrender To Chance of… Vanille d’Iris…
Vanille d’Iris by Geza Schoen for Ormonde Jayne 2015
Photo Stolen Fragrantica
Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Coriander seed, Sicilian bergamot, carrot seed, schinus molle (pink pepper)
Heart: Orris absolute, jasmine absolute, magnolia bud oil, osmanthus
Base: Vanilla extract, Tahitian vanilla bud, cedar wood, vetiver, amber, musk
Vanille d’Iris opens with carrot as the focus, like you’ve just grated a carrot to put on your sandwich. It’s all about the carrot for a little minute and then the rest of the opening shoulders its way in and takes the spotlight. The notes listed are there front and centre with a really fun riff on pink pepper that makes it fun and fizzy but grounded.
Does anyone else get a whiff of cardboard when orris absolute is in a fragrance? Here in Vanilla d’Iristhe coriander and iris seem to be backed by a sweet wall of waxy white flowers, green and white making a perfect setting for the iris and I get a poopy undercurrent (earthy poopy, good but unexpected) floating around with all these fresh cut and cool flowers. Maybe the iris is more earthy? Dunno where it’s coming from but it certainly adds an interesting by-line.
Photo Stolen Wikipedia
If your expecting gourmand due to the name you’ll be super disappointed, the vetiver and osmanthus work together with the woods to keep Vanille d’Iris dry and lightly green. Unusual combination that works so well on my skin, really opens up in the Australian heat too. Not big but fragrant, excellent sillage. While being different to any fragrance I know Vanile d’Iris manages to feel classic and classy, buttoned up but ready to roar.
Further reading: Perfume Posse and I Scent You A Day
Neroli Budapest has €131/50ml
Surrender To Chance has samples starting at $4/.5ml
How is your Christmas shaping up? Have you tried Vanila d’Iris yet?
Wishing you, and the world, a peaceful 2016.
Portia xx
Haha, I love your description of the lunch aftermath. It sounds so familiar 😉
Carrots? I cannot imagine smelling like carrots for a second because I cannot stand the taste (and smell actually – they’re connected) but the rest sounds nice and intriguing and I think I will give it a try. Thanks for the review and a very merry Christmas!
Now I’m intrigued and tempted to try Vanille d’Iris, Portia! Does it have the same Iso E Super overdose of the other OJs, or is it a bit more subtle in that regard?
Also, I want to applaud your choice of No. 5 for festive shimmering. Merry Christmas! xx
from the review, it seems to have some similarity to L’Artisan Dzing though not the iris part. Maybe you can mix dzing and iris silver mist to get similar feel
Interesting idea Fazal,
Portia xx
Merry Christmas Portia!
I love iris, so I read this eagerly. I haven’t sniffed any of the OJ line yet. I’ve been wearing Prada Infusion d’Iris edp this week, (love their candle and bath salts too), but today I’m wearing Van Cleef & Arpels Bois d’Iris layered over Crabtree & Evelyn’s Iris lotion. The C&E has a weird note that smells like wet concrete to me. More of that morphing iris maybe? The VC&A smells like driftwood, ambergris, and iris. To me, it’s cousins with sweeter Hermes L’Ambre des Merveilles.
Hi there DinaC,
That sounds like a fabulous combination. WOW!
Yes, I sometimes get that first drops of rain spattering the concrete on a hot day smell from iris too. Great note, so multi faceted.
Portia xx
Merry Christmas, Portia. I’m spending some time in my old hometown with my maid of honour and her daughter. Lovely, fun, people. I have tried the Vanille d’Iris. I like it very much. OJ fragrances (along with their abysmal customer service) usually don’t appeal to me. I find they begin with quite enjoyable openings, but all dry down to same old, same old.
Interesting, like an OJ Guerlinade? I’ve not worn them close enough together to clock the correlation but now that you’ve mentioned it I will certainly see.
Merry Christmas to you too Kathleen.
Portia xx
This didn’t work for me but I’m happy it did for you. Glad to hear you picked up something poopy too 🙂
A very Merry Christmas to you, Portia!
Hey lovely Tara,
It’s great when you put something on and it doesn’t work, isn’t it? You can cross one thing off the list.
Merry Christmas you gorgeous girl.
Portia xx
Merry Christmas, Portia! Thank you for always making my Thursdays merry and bright! You remind me weekly to take life lightly and have fun.
Carrots and cardboard…this sounds like I must order a decant. DSH has (or had) a sandalwood scent that smelled, among other things, like wet cardboard in a very good way and it was wonderful. Certain smells are both compelling and comforting-hot pavement when it first gets wet, old books, the smell of a hot iron on damp linen or cotton, and for me-cardboard wet or dry.
It’s an unseasonally warm and rainy Christmas Eve morning here and I raise my cup of tea to you and yours.
Hey there Chris,
You’re welcome. Thank you for mentioning it, it’s made my day.
ME TOO! I love cardboard smells. We just unpacked the last two boxes of books today in our new place and I was putting my head in the boxes, yum.
Portia xx
Merry Christmas!
You lost me at carrot. I have nightmares of the carrot in Iris Silver Mist so I won’t be sniffing this one anytime soon. I do thank you for the warning.
Hey there Poodle,
Another mate of mine can’t abide iris because it all smells like bread dough to him. What an incredible note, it can be so many things to everyone.
Portia xx
Bread dough I would like. Lol.
HA! He is TOTALLY turned off by it.
Merry Christmas gorgeous
Portia xx
Cardboard! That’s it! I commented on Chemist in the Bottle that I smelt paper, but you’ve put your finger on it by describing that strange note that flummoxed me as cardboard; not cardboard in the sense that people use the term for tasteless food, because this does have fragrance, but in that it actually smells like burying your nose in a pile of cardboard boxes. Very weird.
Happy Christmas Portia, and to all the Posse.
Hey JillieCat,
I wonder if that’s why cats love to play in cardboard boxes? Because they smell SO GOOD!
Portia xx
That reminds me of a funny YouTube video of cats in cardboard boxes……….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7LzGGJ4Pmw
Happy holidays to all!
Merry Christmas to you too! Yes- I totally smell cardboard and paper in iris perfumes! Which gets confusing when you smell them on a scent strip because for a minute it smells like nothing ( I call it the disappearing ink act of iris). *Grabs some of the cake and cheese from your table*..:-)
Hey Lavanya,
Great to see you. I bet everyone is LOVING their Boxwallah stuff that their buddies bought them for Xmas.
Portia xx