Bois d'Iris
The iris here is approached with Van Cleef & Arpels' signature restraint, opening with a pale, almost chalky facet that suggests powdered orris root and cool violet leaf.
The scent fingerprint
Weighted by intensity across 13 accords.
Every perfume in Sillage is represented as a distribution across canonical accord slugs — a lingua franca for scent. Two fragrances with overlapping fingerprints are scent-twins, even if they share no literal note.
- Iris80
- Woody70
- Earthy65
- Marine
The note pyramid
- Iris
- Ambergris
- Vetiver
- Vetiver
- Myrrh
- Ylang-Ylang
- Amber
- Musk
By the editors · 2 min readThe iris here is approached with Van Cleef & Arpels' signature restraint, opening with a pale, almost chalky facet that suggests powdered orris root and cool violet leaf. There's none of the syrupy sweetness often ladled onto iris compositions. Instead, you get something more architectural: a dry, slightly mineral quality that allows the wood notes to thread through without overwhelming the flower's natural reserve.
As it settles, sandalwood and cedar provide a soft, papery backdrop that feels more like an antique library than a forest. The effect is quietly luxurious rather than demonstrative, with a faint ambery glow in the base that never turns heavy or resinous.
This is iris for those who appreciate its austere beauty rather than want it dressed up. It suits cooler weather and formal situations where you need presence without volume—the kind of scent that makes you notice the wearer's composure before you notice what they're wearing.
Scent twins
Factual metadata (name, house, year, notes) is seeded from public datasets. The editorial reading and scent fingerprint are written by Claude against our house style — none of it is scraped prose. Read our methodology.
