Monday, November 23, 2009

SOTD: Parfumerie Generale Iris Oriental (Formerly Iris Taizo)

Today my long-debated and long-awaited bottle of Parfumerie Generale Tubereuse Couture arrived in the mail. So my SOTD is my sample of Parfumerie Generale Iris Oriental, formerly named Iris Taizo. Don't ask me; I don't know. I used to be sane.

The listed notes for this are Guatemalan cardamom, iris, jinkoh wood, fig-tree honey, Mexican vanilla, and balsamic resins. I always wish that whoever writes these notes lists would make a point of specifying "iris root", because that's what "iris" is in perfumes - it has nothing to do with the flower. Somehow, I always forget that, so I always expect an iris perfume to be at least a little floral. At least in this case, nope. No flowers here.

It starts out heavy, dusty, and incense-like, though incense isn't in the listed notes - perhaps it's the cardamom. It's simultaneously dry and very thick. I can smell something inviting at the core, something sweeter and less dusty, and I want to brush all that incense away to get at it.

And that happens naturally - the incense seems to slowly burn away and fade to the background. An hour after application, it was all the same notes, but with the proportions tilted, with the wood facing me, and the whole thing a good deal less dry, though still very far from sweet.

A couple of hours after that, the incense seemed to be back, but an entirely different incense, softer and powdery. I went out to the grocery at this point, and kept walking through a lovely cloud of gentle, dry, lightly powdery oriental, and wheeling around to try to see who produced it. I suspect, in the end, that I was smelling myself. So it seems that I like this, or at least I like the heart and base notes. I'll have to wait for the next wearing to see if the top notes have grown on me.

Review Roundup: Now Smell This and The Non-Blonde and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Fragrantica and Basenotes and Perfume Posse (brief) and Aromascope (brief) and MakeupAlley and Scent of Abricots and Tea, Sympathy, and Perfume and WAFT and parfumieren and Perfume Patter and Beauty on the Outside.

Updated to expand the Review Roundup.

Photo: Mine

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the mention!

    I'm quite fond of iris oriental, I think probably because of those incensy-notes---though that dry-down is absolutely to die for. :)

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  2. Hey, dee! You're welcome! Yes, it's lovely. It isn't a bit eager to please, but that's often an advantage.

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