Christopher Sheldrake

In Sheherezade’s Skin


– a review of Serge Lutens’ ‘Arabie’

Once upon a fabled time not so many centuries ago, when reason ruled with an enlightened hand, a discovery of hitherto unknown tales sang new stories for an old world, stories that conjured magic and mayhem, thieves and brigands, tales of love and redemption, stories of djinn who lurked in bottles, awaiting new masters and new opportunities for trouble.

Those tales sang of another, foreign world, a sensuous world of searing heat and blinding sun, of sand that blew across the skin soft as a silken veil or sharp as a scythe, visions of all the colors of earth and sky, a paradise glimpsed through a shimmering veil of spice and fire, fruit and wood and like all tales and any paradise, it was only a dream, a shimmering fata morgana in some fertile imagination.

So even I thought, too, once upon a fabled time, thought that everything contained in the word ‘Oriental’ was some impossible, sensual dream of a world that surely never lived and breathed outside the visions of painters and poets and writers evoking their most exotic, fever dreams.

Yet I tell you this tale, I write down this dream and every word is true…Ephemeral as all dreams are, yet it lingers in the air above me, as all the best dreams do, a dream that wraps me in a storyteller’s skin and sings a song of…Arabie.

Arabie, created by Serge Lutens and Christopher Sheldrake in 2000, is a journey in a bottle like all the very best, revelatory perfumes, but to call it anything so prosaic is no way to do it justice.

I have learned a little of the wily ways of M. Lutens and Mr. Sheldrake by now. I had certain expectations – to expect the unexpected, to anticipate the unusual. Nevertheless, even after a year filled with so many fragrant revelations and a few select epiphanies, I was not prepared for this epiphany, this little vial of sensual assault.

In less than a heartbeat, in the time it took me to inhale one fated, fatal breath, I was transported…elsewhere, on a magic carpet ride to another time and place, a very long time ago, when I was still young enough to believe that anything was possible and everything could happen.

With that first surprise of candied mandarin peel, date and fig, that shock of spices – nutmeg with its sweet, woody aura, cumin adding its depth and hint of human, cardamom promising more dusky marvels in store and clove smoldering like embers in a brazier, I am…gone. Far away from my desk, over all the hills and vales of that old and weary world and my own worn and weary self to another world so long ago…and a medina in Morocco, where anything familiar had somehow become alien and everything exotic was instantly familiar. I knew this, I had seen it, smelled it, heard it, tasted it in the air and felt it on my skin burning in the sun.

My nose breathed it in, my brain connected the dots, and my incredulous mind could not fathom what my nose told me, and what it told was that instant when an eighteen-year-old girl walked into a Moroccan medina for the first time and yet again that momentous summer, her world shifted on its axis and grew many times larger than before.

That moment was captured – in this perfume called Arabie. I can breathe it in and relive it these many years later…the scorching heat of afternoon, the narrow, winding alleys, the swirl and eddy of humanity waking from siesta, the cries of the sellers enticing customers to their shops, shops the size of wardrobes packed floor to ceiling with a dizzying array of goods glowing every hue beneath that incendiary blue, and up ahead, baskets of fruit and spices breathing their many secrets into that foreign heat, everywhere the scent of tea and mint, dust and desert, human and history.

Perfume takes me to so many times and spaces, but it doesn’t happen often I time-travel in a breath, and even less that I remember what I was at eighteen.

Arabie is a shapeshifter, it evolves and changes over a long while from that first sweet and heady rush of dried fruit and spices into a sumptuous, redolent, opulent dream of Oh! for Oriental, with benzoin and myrrh, tonka bean and labdanum, a whiff of tobacco smoke caught in passing, and when you pass by, an intimate touch of musk. It smells like an old, heirloom sandalwood box, exhaling all its centuries of secrets, ancient tales told to an adoring audience, tales that begin, as all the best ones do…

“Once upon a time, in a faraway place…’

I wear Arabie, and I find myself staring into space and imagine impossible things, imagine I am wrapped in the aura of Sheherezade’s skin, and as she did, I too can weave my fragrant tales from all the books and all the poets I have ever read and loved, all the knowledge I now hold. I can dream improbable dreams of magic and mayhem, marvels and djinn biding their time in brass lamps – or elegant glass bottles such as this one.

I can recite another poem written so very long ago by a poet who never knew Arabie, but would surely have loved and understood it when he said:

“I want your sun to reach my raindrops
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.”

The careless girl who traveled alone to foreign lands is long gone, but the traces left behind by her adventures, adventures she had forgotten in all the life she has lived linger on in the invisible aura above her storyteller’s skin, and all she has to do for inspiration is to breathe in the tales of…Arabie.

Notes: Cedar, sandalwood resin, candied mandarin peel, dried fig, date, nutmeg, cumin, clove, Ceylon cardamom, bay leaf, balsamic resins, tonka bean, Siamese benzoin, myrrh, cistus labdanum, rockrose, tobacco, musk.

My darling Scent Twin, the devious and beautiful Suzanne of Perfume Journal had something to do with this…so I thanked her as best I could – with a story!

‘Arabie’ is in the export line of Serge Lutens perfumes, available in many locations, among them Luckyscent, and the Serge Lutens website.

Illustration: Virginia Frances Sterrett, Tales from the Arabian Nights. (1928) “Sheherezade continues her tale.”

Quote from Rumi and ‘The Thief of Sleep’, translated by Sharam Shiva

The Incomparable Khadine


– a review of Serge Lutens’ ‘Ambre Sultan’

When you become a true, obsessive perfumoholic, you read…a lot about perfume. Perfume blogs, perfume discussions, Basenotes, Fragrantica, The Perfume Magazine, and whatever articles that might pop into my newsfeed about…perfume.

An article in the UK newspaper The Guardian last December really piqued my interest. It was, among other things, a breakdown of perfumes suitable for the holiday season, and one in particular caught my interest by claiming this perfume was nothing less than that elusive Holy Grail…Sex in a Bottle.

Right. And I’m Queen Marie of Roumania.

Amber perfumes – remember, this was less than a year ago – in particular made me run for the hills screaming. No thank you. I’m too blonde, they’re too obvious and animalic, and besides, my mother wore and loved Shalimar. You know how that goes – anything chère Maman wore is forever out of the question.

But a few days reflection made me reconsider. It was a Lutens/Sheldrake creation, and those two have done more to shift my perspectives than any other perfume duo in terms of redefining perfume artistry. I will always, but always give them the benefit of a doubt. They have surprised me, delighted me, transported me, appalled me, challenged me and seismically shifted my olfactory universe forever. Chère Maman has been gone these thirteen years, so maybe it was time to…grow up? Maman did not wear Serge Lutens. (Trust me, she would have!)

Not to mention, as a woman ‘d’un certain age’ myself, surely I needed all the help I could get? Out came my little book of perfumes, the one it had taken me two weeks to gather up the nerve to ask for. There it was…

Ambre Sultan. In wax, it was…very, very good. I tracked down a small decant, and I do mean…small. There be dragons in that uncharted territory, and who knew what to expect? A man-eating monster? A chimaera? Medusa on the skin? Remember, this was a Lutens. Or was it really…the odorata sexualis of a woman, that particular fragrance Al Pacino refers to in ‘Scent of a Woman’ that transcends perfume, culture, ego, objections and neocortex in one fell swoop and makes a man think…

“This one. Oh, yes.”

I took a deep, deep breath when my decant arrived. I sprayed carefully. Whereupon Wolverine’s father immediately expressed his extreme displeasure, to put it diplomatically, and opened all the windows – in January.

Pity the man. He hates Fracas, too.

Anything my soon-to-be former husband hated on first sniff had to have something to recommend it!

I sniffed. Earthy, herbal, even borderline green at the opening. I was hugely surprised. I then proceeded to spend the better part of an evening with my nose glued to my wrist in a gesture dedicated perfumoholics know all too well.

Ambre Sultan that first, fatal night was a revelation. From that green, herbal blast all the way to the sweet splendor of its peerless golden drydown, it was astounding and surprising. It was one of the most beautiful things I had sniffed in my life. Even so – it is…an amber. Perfume Kryptonite for this Wonder Woman.

No amber could be that good. I had to wear it properly – the total full-body spray – or I couldn’t form an opinion.

That was a night I slept on the sofa. But the day that preceded it was the day I fell helplessly in love – forever.

The wonders of some other fabled ambers I have yet to try. I haven’t experienced Maitre Parfumeurs et Gantier’s Ambre Precieux, Goutal’s Ambre Fetiche, or Parfums d’Empire’s Ambre Russe. I’m sure they’re spectacular. Some day, I would like to try them, and I probably will.

But for this former amber hater, the platinum standard of amber perfumes, the Incomparable Khadine of ambers will always, but always be…Ambre Sultan.

The Incomparable Khadine…a Turkish word that translates as ‘lady’, was also used in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire to denote the Sultan’s favorite concubine, no small distinction when the harem of Topkapi contained over three hundred women, all intent on capturing the Sultan’s attention.

The incomparable Khadine that is Ambre Sultan is not, to the best of my knowledge, an olfactory recreation of the scent of a woman. It wears unisex – I can see this on a man equally well. Heaven forfend I ever meet any short Italianate Big Cheese wearing this, though. I can’t be held accountable for the consequences. They might be lethal.

If you’re looking for a magic carpet ride in a bottle that will take you away from all you think you know of ambers and much you might assume of perfume, look no further. The Khadine is nothing if not surprising, like all the most fascinating women – and perfumes, too.

It opens with a big, borderline bitter blast of green, dry herbs…oregano, which is quite detectable, bay leaf, coriander, myrtle and angelica. At this stage, it seems intimidating, even medicinal. Behind it, the merest hint of amber, veiled just enough to suggest other, sweeter marvels, but a Lutens perfume never gives it all away at the outset. It will take your time as it pleases and reveal itself as it wants, and all you can do is marvel at the view from your magic carpet. Don’t be deterred by the oregano, or even the bay leaf. Pizza will be the last thing on your mind. The coriander and myrtle restrain them, while the angelica with its licorice facet nudges at the wonders to come.

As the Khadine dances across your skin as smoothly as silk, after a good long while, the veil is lifted, an inch at a time, the herbs of the opening fade softly like stars in a morning sky, and the dazzling heart shines through – amber in all its golden magnificence, a sophisticated, grown-up, outrageously opulent amber. Like the gem that also gives this genre its name, different shades that here are different facets of the notes come forth to allure and recede to tantalize you further…dark patchouli, labdanum, styrax…and as even they bloom, the floorshow isn’t over yet.

Many hours later, when you’ve resigned yourself to thinking this is as good as any amber can get, the far drydown – a sweet, smoky mélange of tolu balsam, benzoin, sandalwood, musk and vanilla – lets the final veil drop, and the Khadine stands still before you – as delicious as a first, heated kiss, as deeply satisfying as the twenty-fifth that follows.

Is it that elusive beast – Sex in a Bottle?

Purely in the interests of scientific research you understand, I wore this to work last week. Now as you know, I’m no shy, blushing violet. I am also…‘d’un certain age’. And single. A fatal combination. I did nothing else to add to my own dubious allure except wear my everyday makeup – and Ambre Sultan. Enough to… make a statement. I walked home that day with four invitations – one for coffee, one for a movie, and two for dinner. Not so bad for a humdrum Wednesday.

They’re so sweet when they’re young!

If I were to write my own personal list of perfumes that qualify as ‘Sex in a Bottle’ – in fact, that’s a future blog post I have planned – Ambre Sultan would make it into my current top three. That does not explain why I love it with such a fury, why I’m so passionate about the perfumes of Serge Lutens in general or why I hope never to be without it for the rest of my unnatural lifespan.

Many of my Lutens favorites are infinitely much more than simply ‘sexy’. They challenge me, they tell me continually evolving stories, they change and shapeshift in a way few other perfumes do. Ambre Sultan is no exception to that rule. There is nothing like it in the golden world of ambers. It is flawless art and it is an immortal perfume and it is, to my decidedly biased mind, one of the greatest perfumes created in the past twenty years.

There are many amber perfumes around. Some are very good, some might well be spectacular, but there is only one…incomparable Khadine.

Ambre Sultan.

Notes:
Oregano, bay leaf, coriander, myrtle, angelica, patchouli leaves, amber, cistus labdanum, styrax, Tolu balsam, benzoin, sandalwood, vanilla, musk.

Ambre Sultan is available in the export line of Serge Lutens fragrances in many locations, as well as from the Serge Lutens website.

Image: Detail of ‘L’Apparition’, (1876) watercolor by Gustave Moreau.

Thanks to the fabulous Sevim Türkyilmaz for clarifying the concept of ‘Khadine’.

Dianthus in Abstract


– a review of Serge Lutens’ ‘Vitriol d’Œillet’

Life, John Lennon said once, is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. For my first review since Tuesday and some badly needed days off, I had, don’t you know, other plans…Plans to do a grab bag of mini reviews of whatever random samples my greedy little hands hauled out of the ‘yet to try’ cakebox, just so I could ease myself into the swing of things again. That should teach me.

Once in a while, something happens in a stop-press moment, where you just have to give up, give in and roll with it. Like yesterday, when the only thing in my mailbox was a plain padded envelope postmarked Paris, and I just knew it…drop everything, stop the press, OMG!!!….it’s le nouveau Serge Lutens…Vitriol d’Œillet!

Understand, I don’t do this for just anyone. But if I can blame any perfume house for my slippery slide into Vice I Can Ill Afford, it would be Serge Lutens. It was M. Lutens and his eponymous perfumes that reeducated my nose and realigned my amygdala and made me appreciate things I could have sworn I hated until that day I didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t even live without them.

So there I was yesterday afternoon, dancing around my living room like a Red Injun on the warpath with this plain white envelope. Breaking my rule of one perfume free day a week to clear my nose, tearing it open, yes, that’s what it is, extricating that tiny little sample vial and applying a discreet spray and…

What?

I had to sit down. I had to sit down for a moment, take a deep breath or two, a sniff or three at my wrist, and… laugh.

Laugh, because once again a Lutens perfume has pulled the rug from beneath my feet and foiled all my expectations and misconstrued ideas as to what an ‘angry carnation’ might be. If press releases and debates among perfumistas were anything to go by, this could be the most exciting thing to happen to carnation since…CdG Series 2 Red maybe? Poison, vitriol, acid, caustic, passion…there was no shortage of adjectives and similes on several social networks as to what an ‘angry carnation’ might be.

In my own head, I had an idea that it might be something the editor in my story, nicknamed ‘Caustic Cyd’, would wear for intimidation purposes.

Instead, I had a bad fit of the giggles. I always had an idea there were puns in those bottles and not just their names but puns of an olfactory kind, an unexpected twist on expectations as to what a perfume can be without ever compromising on a vision, a bit of strange, another, more compelling kind of beauty.

Carnations have all sorts of connotations, political, personal or in perfumes. Once upon a time, said Theophrastus, they were sacred to Zeus/Jupiter, later they were purloined and dyed green by the aesthetes of Oscar Wilde’s age (There’s a wicked parody in Robert Hichens’ book ‘The Green Carnation’), used as a symbol of a mother’s love, or in wedding bouquets to symbolize love, fascination and distinction, or alternately, if they’re variegated, an elegant way to say ‘your love cannot be returned.’

Trust the French to put another twist on the carnation. Purple carnations in France are traditionally used in funerals and symbolize misfortune and bad luck.

This vitriol of carnation is dyed a delicate, rather wistful violet hue…

First, forget everything you’ve heard. In fact, forget everything you know about carnation and carnation perfumes. The glories of, say, Caron’s ‘Tabac Blond’, or their famous carnation soliflore ‘Bellodgia’, forget Floris’ ‘Malmaison’, forget Nina Ricci’s ‘L’Air du Temps’ or Etro’s ‘Dianthus’. Please do forget the clove/cinnamon RedHot that is the Comme des Garcons’ Red Series version. Vitriol is nothing like it, and like none of them. It doesn’t have the vintage perfume-y vibe of Tabac Blond or Bellodgia, nor the lush floral bouquet of L’Air du Temps, and certainly not, at least to my nose, anything remotely resembling RedHot. It doesn’t smell old-fashioned in the slightest, and it doesn’t smell like anything else modern, either.

It starts out with a searing punch in the nose of pepper, black pepper, the sweeter and softer pink pepper, and an airy, fragrant carnation as they once were in some expensive florist’s, as cool and as fresh as the dew that still clings to those pinked petals. I do mean it smells fresh, and I do mean it is cool, but wait for it, this is a Lutens, after all, and soon enough, a fiery sotto voce whisper of cayenne pepper kicks up its heels and dances out into the limelight for a pas de deux cancan with that frilly flower as it whirls around and around a still clove center that spins it like a pinwheel. Now peppery, now fiery, now with a slight touch of dentist’s office and oil of cloves, but even as it heats up, it also manages to keep its cool. If that sounds like a contradiction, it’s precisely the kind of contradiction no other perfume house does quite so elegantly.

As it dries down, the clove grows stronger and a bit more emphatic, the nutmeg and the cayenne add a slightly human touch before fading away to a cool, powdery, nutmeg-woody whisper of past dreams of pinks. No floral notes are listed, so I must be imagining that light touch of rose and something that could be a suggestion of violet or is it orris for that melancholy air, that wistful, final wink of fire and pepper.

This won’t knock anyone sideways with sillage, so if that’s what you expect, you will be disappointed.

I can honestly say I wasn’t. Easily unisex, easily wearable, and easily blowing my preconceptions to frilly smithereens, it took me a while to understand the joke. The vitriol is that this is an abstract carnation, a deconstructed dianthus, taken apart to atoms and rebuilt from scratch into another, different kind of pink, an unusual carnation with tiny cayenne teeth to remind you that no matter how beautiful, no matter what color or associations you find in those toothsome petals, it still has enough fire to punch you in the nose if it so pleases!

Nothing like a carnation with an attitude problem. ‘Caustic Cyd’ wouldn’t wear this, but I certainly would, at the drop of a violet carnation…

Notes: Nutmeg, clove, black pepper, pink pepper, cayenne pepper.

‘Vitriol d’Œillet’ is in the export line of Serge Lutens perfumes, and will be made available worldwide in September. For European customers, It can be bought now from the Serge Lutens website.

Invisible Armor


– a review of Serge Lutens’ ‘Chêne’

The problem with being a certified perfumoholic is how it can spill over in unexpected ways into other aspects of life and associations that don’t have too much to do with perfume and more to do with what that particular scent and mood represents.

Once upon a time not too long ago, I wrote a nothing little short story that grew legs in no time and kept on walking, before it hopped, skipped, ran and evolved into a full-blown novel that wasn’t at all what even I expected. These were before the days of perfume blogging, before the days of friends on several sides of three oceans and help for desperate situations. These were the days when I debated with myself for weeks before I finally gathered up the courage to send an email to a perfume house so impossibly refined and indubitably sophisticated, I agonized over a French dictionary and my own oxidized French for three whole nights before I just gave up the ghost and wrote them in English.

Time to email Parfums Serge Lutens and request the famous Petit Livre des Parfums. I was some sort of grownup now, and I was getting awfully peeved at reading so many purple-prosed reviews of Lutens perfumes on perfume blogs and not having a clue. Nothing could be that good. I was too old to be that intimidated.

In no time, I received a nice, fat, fragrant envelope and a nicely signed card that I still own today, and braced myself for this Brave New World ahead. I knew that this was…a moment from which I could never turn back, and my olfactory universe would never be quite the same again.

One in particular caught my attention out of the many that I felt I must some day own, or else die with a severe sense of deprivation. As a perfume, it checked all the right boxes. Green, smoky, both ephemeral and earthy, it was like nothing else I had ever smelled, and evoked an emotion I had never felt before. It made me feel stronger, walk taller, it made me feel…invincible.

Chêne. A liquid ode to the mighty oak tree in all its aspects – the green of the leaves, the smell of sap, the sweet, vanilla-tinged fragrance of its wood. It was…love at first sniff.

It wasn’t long before a large decant found its way into my greedy little hands and Chêne found its way onto my green-craving skin. I never suspected I would enjoy feeling quite so much like Joan of Arc at the moment she walks into the French camp and demands a horse and an audience with the French king. Suddenly, I was Boudicca and Hippolyta and the living embodiment of every female warrior who ever breathed, and there would be no tragic ending here, no chink in this armor. I would never be punished for my transgression in thinking I was equal to anything or anyone, and I would not be intimidated…ever again.

Back to those ever-colder, ever-darker November nights not so long ago, wrestling with the Devil and a few demons of my own making, trawling the murky depths of my subconscious for a story I didn’t even know I needed to tell. Over the next few months, perfume too began weaving its seductive trail through the storyline…as the description of a mood or invocation of an atmosphere, as a bribe, or as a foreshadowing of events to come.

Above them all stood Chêne, my protagonist’s favorite. At her first meeting with a prestigious New York literary agent, she reflects…

I wiped my sweaty palms on my skirt, pulled at my suede boots and tried to forget a bra strap was slowly but surely sliding down my left shoulder. I should have worn something else besides Chêne, something safe and innocuous and familiar, but Chêne was my invisible armor.


And at a much later point in the story, after triumph and tragedy, the Devil, no longer what even he once was, decides to pay a visit and remembers:

Skin like silk, a perfumed promise of deliverance, that low, feline growl at the back of her throat, that green and sappy, sweet and smoky trail of Chêne at the back of her neck that drove me mad.


It’s no coincidence at all that the three perfumes my protagonist specifically describes as wearing at different times in the story are all Lutens/Sheldrake creations, nor that when the Devil takes a four-year vacation, he leaves with a bell jar of Chêne, one reminder of that latter-day Joan of Arc who stole the heart he didn’t think he had.

Herbal and green, Chêne starts as a surprise and ends as an aria to all the glories of the wood it celebrates. Cedar and thyme and a deliciously boozy rum dance out into the air off my skin. Instead of slouching, I stand up straighter. When first the birch and next what must be immortelle arrive, I’m talking back, I feel safe and protected and somehow invincible. Life can throw me whatever surprises it likes. Nothing will occur that I can’t handle. My invisible armor sparkles in the sunlight that bounces off the leaves.

Many hours later, the rum, birch, immortelle and sap give way to a furry tonka bean and smoky, burning wood, the scent of a bonfire flaming on a Midsummer’s Eve beneath the boughs, but this is no heretic burning at any stake for her hubris at challenging the status quo, this is a celebration of life and every living creature that breathes and loves. The eerie, earthy, aroma of sap and all that grows, the scent of the oak itself, sacred to Jupiter, and an intimation to be aware that not all that rustles in the undergrowth may be benign. Some creatures may bite, some may sting and all of them are hungry for that taste of green, effervescent life.

If ever a perfume smells…atavistic, this would be it. Proud and pagan, unapologetic and primeval, this is the quintessence of Wood, quintessence of Oak, a sophisticated ode to all that grows just below our ability to articulate it.

Nevertheless, we can grasp it, we can understand it, we can look up in awe at that majestic, sacred tree …and feel its essence in our bones and in that ancient part of our memories that hides just beyond our words.

Wearing Chêne, I can go out into the world and meet…literary agents, editors, Very Important People of any stripe, and present them with the Ten Most Important Reasons I Should Be Heard, and more to the point – knowing that I will be. I’m a latter-day Joan of Arc, although I won’t burn at any stake for my hubris and my own choice of divinity might be unorthodox. Yet I can accomplish whatever I choose with whomever I meet.

Now, Your Majesty, I shall need a horse and a sword. Where did you say those cowardly, lily-livered Anglais were hiding?

Notes according to Basenotes:
Sap, cedar crystals, black thyme, silver birch, rum, beeswax, oak, undergrowth note, tonka.

Chêne is available in the export line of Serge Lutens perfumes, available at Luckyscent, Aedes, and at Barneys NY. It is also available from the Serge Lutens website.

Image of Joan of Arc from Wikimedia Commons

Bearded Ladies


– Reviews and reflections on iris

It’s spring, says my calendar, and spring is the time of year to dig all my favorite flowers out of hiding to celebrate. It’s spring – so bring on the fancy florals, those fragrant florid fantasies that I try to conjure before flying out the door in the morning with Spider-Man Jr.

Any reader of this blog knows my predilection for orange blossom, and Mademoiselle Orange still reigns supreme, no question. But in these heady days of early spring, she’s sometimes a bit too…girlie for my taste. Girlie is fine some days, the days I wake up happy and want to shout it to the stars. Since daylight savings time arrived last weekend and I realize that technically I’m now getting out of bed at 4 AM when it is still pitch-black outside, those days have yet to arrive.

For mornings like these and the days that stretch out in front of them, I want a flower that says ‘w-o-m-a-n’, preferably with a capital W. And no flower known to man or Woman in my arrogant opinion says Woman (capital included!) like that bearded lady known as Iris Pallida.

Iris is such a stunning flower, a showgirl in the spring parade with her white or purple frills and that laughing slivery shock of yellow. In perfumes, however, she comes across very differently. Iris can be chilly, slightly intimidating and even haughty, but she is always, always flawlessly turned out and always exudes…elegance and class and a slight distance to other merely mortal flowers. She has been known to devour roses, unless Madame Rose battles it out, all thorns included, and refuses to be intimidated. As for the rest of them – well, they’re not her, are they?

‘So not my social register, dahling. You can do better. Your stock has gone up.’

I listen to arguments like these every morning in front of my perfume cabinet, I swear.

Recently, I decided to explore this bearded lady in all her many glories a bit more. When a sample package arrived from Olfactoria recently, she included a few versions of Madame Iris, and instead of doing separate reviews of each, I decided to compare them – just to start another catfight in my cabinet. I love it when the djinns in those bottles begin to argue, and argue, they do. My stock is going up, and they know it!

The Queen of Faërie
Iris Silver Mist, by Serge Lutens.
Created by Maurice Roucel in 1994, this is iris at her strangest, her eeriest, and her most mercurial and ethereal. There really is nothing else like it. Chilly spring earth with a whisper of green, a hint of carrot, and a shapeshifter of an iris that peeks and hides, hides and peeks – and then jumps out at you when you least expect it with such mind-blowing beauty you want to cry. Right at the moment you get it, you get this iris in the bedrock of your very soul, she disappears laughing below the ground, and all you’re left with is a memory. You give up. You forget about her, and resign yourself to that melancholy echo of the earth breathing on a spring day. She waits, and then jumps out of the forest, shouting ‘BOO!’ I like surprises, but few perfumes have surprised me so much and so continuously as this one.

28, La Pausa, by Chanel (2007)
If like me you love iris, then this is a no-brainer. It’s iris. Iris in all its glory, iris from start to finish, it’s all about iris, and it’s gorgeous, green, breathtaking and heartstopping in its very iriscentricity. The problem is, it disappears in nothing flat. WTF??? Jacques Polge, how could you DO this to me? If Chanel – who would surely know how – would amp this up to eau de parfum or parfum, it would never leave my cabinet or my spring rotation, ever. Christopher Sheldrake, are you listening? Do something. We iris lovers deserve that much!

Infusion d’Iris, by Prada (2007)
If some of these bearded ladies are buxom, fully grown women who know how to wear haute couture, walk in stilettos and behave in ladylike fashion when confronted with whole cooked artichokes, then this is Iris as Supermodel. Not above age 20, not with a hint of curves and not too much personality, either. This is an iris with not much meat on her bones. She photographs well, it must be said, but this woman doesn’t deserve that capital W. For the longest time, all I got was Elnett hairspray whenever I tried it. I tried it again today, and while I didn’t get the Elnett, I got a pallid, bloodless, slouchy iris, a wannabe iris, a wimpy iris I’m not sure I have time enough for. I like to make a statement, and the only thing IdI states is ‘well, at least I tried to be what you wanted…’ in her breathy, little voice. Sorry, baby. You should go play with your Barbies now. They’ve been missing you.

Iris Nobile, by Acqua di Parma (2004)
At the opposite end of the scale is Acqua di Parma’s Iris Nobile, who is all Woman, all the time. The kind of woman who would never dream of venturing out in public without every hair and eyelash in place. She is very beautiful, slightly haughty and very, very restrained. I wore jeans and a sweater the day I took her for a test drive, and she was not very pleased. Not by the music on my iPod, not by my attire in general and least of all by those jeans. ‘A proper signora would never wear those!’ she shouted, ‘and certainly not without more foundation garments! And heels! Signora, you are small! You need heels! A pencil skirt at least, and a suitable blouse, silk of course, and…’
And I’m just too much of a Viking slob for Signora Nobile…

Terre d’Iris, by Miller Harris (2005)
Miller Harris is a line I’ve had a slightly uneasy relationship with. I once owned a decant of Citron-Citron, and although I liked it quite a lot for hot, carefree summer days, it vanished almost before I knew it was there. Not so with TdI. This is an iris with titanium ovaries and a built-in attitude, and it caught me by surprise. Elegant, but not so elegant she can’t stand my beloved jeans, and with just enough wood to keep me intrigued. (All puns intended!) Oh, yes, she’s a keeper. She can wrestle that Prada wimperella with one hand behind her back and an elegant toss of her hair, and take on all the snooty Lutens ladies who roll their heavily made-up eyes at the plebes who share that cabinet. I liked her, really I did. With that much attitude, I suspect she wore safety pins in her attire in her wanton youth – and rest assured, it was…wanton. All that wood…

I still have a few more bearded ladies to try. The question is, what catfights will they get into on the shelves of my perfume cabinet? I can’t wait to find out!