Collection Extraordinaire Bois d`Iris Van Cleef & Arpels for women

It smells very good. Woodsy and powdery with a hint of cool iris...but..it has no personality! Its like the pageant queen of its time, pretty, perfectly proportioned, but ultimately boring and forgettable. It doesn't say anything new or interesting. It doesn't challenge. I am over buying expensive "nice" scents when I could get the same effect from a BBW lotion.

I so wanted to own a bottle of Boid d'Iris by The Different Company but could never get over the poor staying power. The scent was great but it was not worth the money.

When I asked a SA which perfume she would recommend to me as a substitute she sprayed some Bois d'Iris by VC&A on a test strip. And - I was in heaven! I think I would even have bought it without trying it on skin, it was that good.

Does the two Bois d'Iris versions smell totally alike? No, they don't. The TDC version is more airy and a bit more realistic. It is like the name says: an iris in the woods with a very light breeze around you.
Bois d'Iris by Van Cleef & Arpels is deeper and more intense. The ambergris and labdanum make this one sweeter and there is a certain liqueur-note as well (not an alcoholic note but a dark, smooth feeling). I always think of branches that are covered with caramelized sugar though it never becomes too sweet.
The wood, sweet notes and the iris take turns all the time and I am glad that none of the notes is too dominant.

However, I don't get the driftwood reference. There are no salty hints when I smell Bois d'Iris. I always think of a magic wood with strong colours, sugared tree branches and an iris standing right in the middle.

The longevity is very good (especially on clothes), the sillage is medium (non-offensive).

Definitively my favourite of the VC&A Extraordinaire collection!

i think now that maybe i was wrong. i don't own bois d'iris (yet) but i wore it again yesterday from a sample. it's not that similar to jil sander, and it's kind of
unique (if not "extraordinaire") for an iris scent. i don't know enough about fragrance to be more specific, but it's very, very beautiful. i have fallen a little bit in love with B d'I. definitely need to have it. like many (or most) of you on this site, i kind f have more perfumes and colognes than i can really wear. and yet i just keep buying more...

this to me smells remarkably similar to jil sander style, i do enjoy wearing it very much but would not call it "extraordinaire".

Dry wood heated by the sun in the morning sea. I love it. Worth every penny. Durability - over 10 hours.

To begin with it’s just cedar and incense, with a strange, slightly rubbery note. As it dries down, it sweetens a little, the iris appears, and it becomes a dry mix of incense and orris root, with very little in the way of powdery violet.

The hype from VC&A claims that it’s supposed to represent driftwood, but I really don’t see any resemblance. Driftwood is skanky and salty, but Bois d’Iris is clean and pure smelling, at least the first half is. To me, it’s evocative of the inside of a cathedral with the lingering smell of incense, subtle flowers, old stone walls, and the faint scent of perfumes worn by previous visitors. It’s a subdued scent, but the sillage is definitely there.

After it’s dried down for a few hours, it transforms into a slightly fruity amber-vanilla scent. It’s very tenacious, lasting all day on skin and longer on clothing. This is something I would definitely wear and enjoy.

It has the character I am looking for especially in the morning. Remains for longer than a usual fragrance. Tonality on clove in the right way.
I really love it. Price is absolutely too high as alcool density remains high. I bought it for $100 in an airport...and now I see it on Ebay for $285...and $185 anywhere else... Would pay up to $125 not one cent more.

this perfume is the exaltation of the iris for excellence.
Who loves the iris must definitely try.
The scent lasts for at least 12 hours and resists wash!

I love henri345que's review. Spot on!

For its $185 price, you gotta love this scent if you're buying it for that much. I was lucky to find samples first of all the scents, and Bois d'Iris seemed to be the only one that had character to me. It was unique, understated, and elegant--but still, the price!

Persistence and patience pays off on eBay. They finally had a bottle offered from someone, and luck would have it that no one bid on it. I bought the bottle for less than $50!!

I don't wear it as often as I'd like to. Sometimes, I can't help but think that it smells like cardboard. Not a bad thing for me, I do love quirky and strange scents. But in my book, it's gotta smell like what you paid for it. I love this quirky $50 scent!! :D

This smells like sauna or chopped wood. I really can't smell anything else here but wood!
I love it though, it's really addictive. Still, this is not what I would want to smell like. I would however love to smell it on my boyfriend! :)

I don`t have tried all the fragrances in the Van Cleef Collection, but i can say that their Bois d'Iris is an amazing quiet rendition of the Iris aroma. The iris here is treated in a similar way of Bois d'Argent from Dior; all have a light, transparent, woody powdered iris. The difference for me is that Bois d`Argent wraps the Iris accord in light honey and some resinous aromas, while Bois d`Iris seems more focused on the Iris itself, with a vaguely woody accord at background and something salty mixed with the iris. I saw someone commenting that Bois d`Iris was for the iris material what Eau des Merveilles was for ambergris; i say it`s quite accurate this, although Bois d`Iris has more flesh and bone than Eau des Merveilles.

This opens much more gourmand than I like, and i was set on writing a so-so review. Fortunately I got caught up with something and forgot about it, and for the past hour I've been wondering where that delightful smell was coming from.

Luckily the dry down is the selling point. Woody references aside, this is a 'hot' fragrance wrapped in wetness. I had a hard time deciding where my mind was going with that, but a memory surfaced to help me out.

I used to live in Phoenix, and a short drive out of town there is a river that winds through the desert. Over the centuries it carved out a cavern from the surrounding bedrock, and the mist allowed the walls to fill in with lichen and moss.

When you stand inside this cavern you get the hot desert air caught up with the dank decay from the walls. And there it is- the 'hot' wetness that I'm picturing here.

I also think Bois d'iris is an 'active' fragrance, not a comfort scent. I don't feel 'warm and cuddly' while wearing this, I feel like jogging or riding a bike. I don't even agree with the ad copy that its 'luxurious'. To me it is strong, confident and focused.

Either way, I like it.

Beautiful iris--and Celina wrote a wonderful review. If you're looking for something like Luten's Iris Silver Mist, you won't find it here. This is a slightly sweet, woodsy, and spicy concoction with a hint of iris. I find it more gourmand than the other iris scents I own, but an adult's gourmand made by a master who knows not too put too much vanilla and just the right amount of sugar and spice. Wonderful!

It is unfortunate so many look down on Van Cleef & Arpels collection. Sadly, it is not popular either as it comes with a high price tag, but there are so many other scents on the market as expensive as these ones and less interesting…
As many other “things “ made by this house… this collection has uniqueness in approaching textures and details.

Regarding Bois d"iris: if you expect a woody-forest-leaves-green iris this is not the one. I tried other “bois” and “ irises” as I have an obsession for both of them and this one is just something else. I wasn’t prepared for it. I had to take a step back, clean my mind of any expectations and step in with an open mind.

Nobody would describe this composition better than its creator Emilie Copperman:
"Bois d'Iris imagines the scent of wood from a totally different angle, without the forest, leaves and earth. Created to replicate the scent of driftwood on the seashore, Bois d'Iris is an atypical and enchanting woody blend created by a minimalist and ultra-qualitative structure. Precious essences of exotic wood are punctuated with a vibrant, salty note of ambergris, while a beautiful powdery iris lends soft elegance, reminiscent of Tuscany."

Suddenly it makes sense. The amber gris note is leading this composition. It reminds me of Ambre Gris by Balmain without too much peppery-spiciness. There are some common notes, but Balmain’s is bolder and actually has pepper in it. Here, the spiciness and peppery tones are more of an aura and the result of secondary effects coming from amber gris, labdanum, vetiver, frankincense, myrrh.

The opening is amber-myrrh creamy and sweet. There are few woody exotic semi tones coming from the mixture of frankiness and driftwood.
So well balanced. It may sound overwhelming… far from it. Its creator brought tones, semitones, flat and sharp, all together in harmony.

It is called Bois d’Iris, but the iris is just a guest somewhere in the background adding a soft powderiness to the glorious ambergris.

The dry down is sweeter and more vanillic, but still ambery and myrrhic with a touch of smoky- resinous labdanum and incense. Good silage, long lasting.

The actual composition: sweet notes, frankincense, iris, driftwood, vetiver, ambergris, labdanum, myrrh, and vanilla.


Beautiful, distinct and classy.

8.2/10

To me it smells like stale, flat fountain soda with a wooden popsicle stick mixed in. Oddly addictive though. I have to be in the mood to wear this one. It has good staying power on me. I find it a bit overpriced. Overall, I like it. Worth testing.

Silky-dry soft wood underdraught with vanilla.

A bit similar to oblique play from givenchy,very good quality and long lasting, it is fresh, a little sweet and a little spicy love it.
IMO a man can wear it also.

PS Also the drydown after some hours is beautifull and warm silky.