Ballad Irones: Apres Le Soir

Our ode to “irones”, the material at the heart of Iris

Why are irones crazy expensive?, because they take a crazy amount of processing and TIME (up to 7 years) from the root of the iris flower to concentrate them in the final orris product. So irones absolute is about 85,000$/ kilogram. Now is that the only reason?, absolutely not, the other main reason is that irones are a family of isomeric ketones responsible for the smell of violets and orris and they smell absolutely heavenly on their own.

The synthetic counterparts are much less versatile like synthetic musk is versus natural musks and are 200$/ kilo. Smelt side by side though, it's not even a close call, no wonder why a lot of people who think they have smelt iris, actually don't know how it smells like, instead they are smelling rose or some synthetic musk and attributing it to iris.

Irones are earthy, powdery, woody, and rooty, and even according to olfactory scientists like Philip Kraft and other prominent scientists, science has “no consensus as to which isomers and enantiomers contribute most to the typical odor of orris root”, in other words, the smell is about the whole “melange” of naturally produced irones and ionones, rather than the 200$/ kilo alpha irone.

Ballad: Irone, Apres Le Soir is our first and only ballad perfume based on irones, the heart of iris.

I always loved iris, we have had two very successful releases with Iris, Iris Chypre and Poudre: Bois D’ Iris, but none of them had the oud/ musk dimension. I have smelt some Iris/oud combos from other houses, and even though they smell nice, they are not “IRIS” perfumes.

Unlike Poudre: Bois D’ Iris, in which we used classical notes to supplement the iris note, in this one, we are using a whole different approach to highlight the beauty of the iris.

Alongside our Ghaliyas, poudre Bois D’Iris, and our Ballad No.1,  this is one of the costliest perfumes we made, let me give you some perspective..

In there, you have our absolute best musk maceration, matured for over one year at 20% concentration of grains. You have one of the finest wild Malaysian ouds from “AL Shareef Oudh”- Al Ameen, selected for its subtle animalic facets, and macerated with ambergris for several months before being incorporated into this perfume.

Blue lotus absolute from India fused with blackcurrant absolute from France, saffron from Iran, Taifi rose, Egyptian jasmine, musk ketone oil and musk pod exudate from Siberian deer musk pods (specialty products from NinjaRobb - photos shown), co2 royal Hojari frankincense from Oman, peach isolates, just to name a few from the satellite notes surrounding the main beauty in there that we have been promoting for a few months now, our Orris 80% “irones”, which is stunning. If you think you have smelt iris before, I disagree, this is another level, the powderiness of this orris is so strong, it takes over this composition with all these high impact perfumery materials ,which was intentional, iris is the star here, with normal iris you will get some powder note, with this iris, you will smell something that you have never smelt anything like before.

When you buy this perfume, you get a complimentary sample of orris 80% “irones”, just so you can enjoy this thing on its own, at 55,000$ a kilo (at wholesale!!), you are really smelling something absolutely unheard of in perfumes, niche or not, not its usage, yes, maybe it was used  somewhere like in a drop per liter quantity, but at the concentrations used in this perfume, you be the judge with the reference sample as to how much was used here.

This also is not about buying this perfume because it has beautiful materials or expensive melanges, no, this is a PROPER perfume. This is a continuation of the legacy of iris perfumes, this is the new Soir, Apres Le Soir..

NOTE: The attar version of this perfume contains deer musk grains inside.

To allow for all of our customers to try our more expensive offerings, We made some samples available for this perfume- limited in number.