Iris Perle

Like some beautiful faces so gorgeous you’re not sure what feature to pay attention to first, the elegant Iris Perle is an embarrassment of riches.

Perhaps the first thing you notice is coolness, as if elegance turned itself into silk, shimmering in the light. The multifaceted mimosa bloom, so fresh and representative of that honeyed floral you’d think its scent was radiating from under your nose by the warmth of the sun, combines with sultry jasmine and bright ylang-ylang. Maybe the violet leaves or clary sage that keep the composition fresh catch your attention first, or the huge amount of the most expensive perfume ingredient in the world—orris, the sensual backdrop to Iris Perle that is at once earthy, cool, sensual, and creamy.

Whatever it is you notice first, or all at once, these are not ordinary ingredients. They’re the Platonic Ideal, whose journey from plant to bottle was ushered with experience and care by their founders. The Moroccan mimosa absolute in Iris Perle is extracted in their lab from carefully hand-selected flower buds only, whereas the entire flower and stem is usually used in other perfumes with mimosa notes. This accounts for its smooth, rich floralcy that edits out unwanted herbaceous qualities. And from the time it’s planted until it’s extracted, it takes seven years for orris root to deliver its oil, like a pearl in the world of perfumery. Iris Perle gets its French orris from “grand cru” crops exclusive to Les Indémodables.

Antoine Lie has wrested from all of these superior ingredients their most singing and luscious qualities, leaving for the dramatic backdrop a kind of textural perfume: rich, buttery, gleaming, and smooth, like an iridescent pearl.