Orris Noir (2006)
by Ormonde Jayne

So where’s the “noir”? Orris Noir starts out as a rather bright, sweet, fruity fragrance, quickly supplemented with a hefty dose of powder. A blend of sweet spices emerges after several minutes, transforming the fragrance from fruit punch to baked fruit dessert and moving it toward oriental territory in the process. As Orris Noir develops the fruit calms down and the spices expand, making for much better balance. By the time I’ve worn it for an hour, Orris Noir has become a richer, though not particularly darker, scent.

To me the iris in this scent seems quite restrained – so much so that I’m surprised to find it in the name. By the time it reaches its crescendo Orris Noir is a sumptuous, if not outright decadent, sweet spicy oriental, which eventually subsides into a smooth balsamic-woody drydown. It’s a very nice scent, but its name gets no reward from me for truth in advertizing.

I longed for this for two years since the sample. Now I own and adore it. A classic and totally unique. A perfume with sophistication to be worn day or night.

Another classy fragrance from this fine house, but, it would be kind of hard for a man to wear this as it seems more geared for women. But everything from this house is quality from their products and their service. Even though I know I can't talk myself in wearing a fragrance I feel the opposite gender would be more suitable for, I will look forward to being a future customer with this house in trying some of their other products.

This s power and the Arabian culture in a bottle. I just fell in love with it. I would say its more geared to a woman than a man, but hey this is the 2000's and if women can wear mans clothes than i dont see why we cant wear something gravitating to them. Again price is a killer!

Three words to describe Orris Noir: Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Lighter than its name implies, but spellbinding nonetheless, ON skims along the surface of the skin so deftly I kept expecting it would disappear entirely any minute. Instead it became creamier as it opened up, and was still marvelously "there" hours after I first put it on. It is a beautiful blend of light spices and delicate exotic florals, the pink pepper, coriander and powdery iris (fortunately more iris than powder) definitely come through on me. I must also compliment the presentation -- Even though I only got a sample, it arrived in dramatic all-black, tied with a black grosgrain ribbon. Very classy, and made even better because the scent lived up to the packaging!

Ormonde Jayne continues to knock my olfactory socks off. Bewitched by Ta'if, I am now utterly seduced by Orris Noir - I am so head over heels in love with this one that I am rationing my little sample bottle. Another of Linda Pilkington's Arabian Night perfumes, this time belonging to the twilight - not as dark as the name suggests and with little of the traditional powdery iris - a sweet, beguiling scent of perfumed palace gardens, rather than the heady, midnight desert oasis garden that is Ta'if.