Iris Lumière

I love all the parfums from Shalini created by M Roucel. Iris Lumiere is a green waterly Iris which is highly innovative and different from the powdery Iris perfumes. I met Shalini many years at Bergdorfs and she is lovely and beautiful and very passionate about her parfums. Over the years, I have a built a collection of all her fragrances including the new Gold which is excellent. Jessica has helped me with all my orders with great care. Most perfume houses nowadays use a lot of chemicals and it is rare to find a creator who wants to use the natural essences. Congratulations to Shalini and M. Roucel for creating this beautiful house.

I bought the 100ml Byzantine flacon unsniffed, based on the notes and the inspiring review of Mark Behnke of Colognoisseur. The scent is enchanting, pure magic. It is a crystalline, floral and green beauty of exquisite elegance, remarquably easy to wear in all settings. The galbanum, hyacinth and muguet complement ideally the Iris Queen resting on a murmur of frankincense. It retains its floral verdancy in the drydown and never gets powdery to my nose. One of the most compelling scents I’ve experienced. A masterpiece.

One of the best Iris fragrances available... if not the best ever!!!

If you’re looking for an iris perfume, this isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a replacement for the original Gucci Envy but made with better materials and you don’t mind spending a fortune, you might want to check this one out. Both perfumes were created by Maurice Roucel so I don’t think the nod is a coincidence. Despite the name, I can’t detect any iris in this at all. I’m sure it’s there but to my nose this is a lily of the valley and hyacinth forward green floral fragrance with watery green notes, galbanum, and delicate touches of fruit underneath with a sort of melon/pineapple feel and a tiny bit of woodiness in the base. While there is a luminous feel, this is a very dense and substantial perfume, not ethereal at all. To me, Iris Lumiere is a cross between Gucci Envy and Cristalle, not the newer Cristalle but more like the vintage EDT or EDP. It feels slightly damp and dewy, not ultra-dry like the later formulations of Cristalle. It’s a fantastic green floral, clearly made with excellent materials by one of the greatest living perfumers. Beautiful perfume...with a puzzling name. (As a side note, Shalini needs to step up their game as far as packaging. The glass is cheap, the inner tube on the atomizer is thick and clunky, the inside base of the box is cheap foam and it falls apart. If you blind buy from them and you’re used to buying luxury perfume you’re going to be disappointed. The package looks like it comes from EBay. This is NOT a luxury experience. I was even sent a USED bottle with a very dirty and scratched up atomizer with dried perfume all over it and the stopper at the base where it screws on had disintegrated and was crumbling. I requested a replacement and received another nozzle 2 weeks later and again it looked like a package from EBay. At these prices the experience was extremely poor.)

I finally got a chance to sample this fragrance with a very generous 1,3ml sample. Firstly, the ingredients in this are truly exquisite, dense, and the longevitiy of this in only the smallest drop is astounding. A put one quarter drop of it on my wrist and it is room filling and lasts for hours and hours. Now for the scent itself: I personally think the name is mismatched and it should be called 'Muguet Lumiere' - as this is a very strong lily of the valley scent. It's THE dominant note in the scent above all others and it was a bit of a letdown for me as I love iris scents and due to the name expected the iris to be the leading note in this one. I do get an earthy-fresh iris in the start but it very soon falls into the background and the lily of the valey takes the lead and strongly. It's a good, fresh, green lily of the valley and in the heart note I get small hints of the a bit sharper hyacinth, no galbanum and no incense though. I'm really glad I got this sample and it will probably last me years as it is wonderfully intense but even as a fan of lily of the valley the flower is very strong and dominant in this scent and I couldn't wear it every day. I will gladly use my sample but I would not purchase an original bottle as 7.5ml costs around 200$, which is, in my opinion, a bit much for mostly a quite good lily of the valley scent.