Iris Tingitana

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Iris tingitana is the carrot iris, not the powdery one. Every odour claim found for it comes from reviews of two finished perfumes, and both converge on the same thing: an earthy, carrot-like, waxy character that persists, with the powdery-violet orris quality present but brief or contested. One reviewer of Atelier Cologne's Iris Rebelle, where it is the only iris material, says plainly it is 'not a powdery iris at all, more a floral one with an undercurrent of green vegetal'. Another describes an 'almost buttery orris' opening that is 'sadly very short-lived' before the carrot-earthy phase takes over. Confidence is low and the spreads are wide, because no supplier publishes an olfactive description of this material and every claim here is entangled with a composition's other notes.

Scent Profile

Iris Tingitana smells earthy and carrot-like more than powdery, unlike the classic orris iris. That root and carrot quality outlasts everything else on the skin. A powdery, buttery orris note does show at the very opening, but only briefly. Underneath runs a waxy quality and a faint green, vegetal undercurrent, reading as more floral than dusty overall.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~5h lasting

Family Floral, Woody & Earthy

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Iris tingitana is a bulbous species in Iris subgenus Xiphium, native to Morocco and Algeria and also found in Spain and Portugal. Wikipedia records the common names Morocco iris, Tangerian iris and Tangiers iris, and warns it is often mistakenly called Spanish iris, which is Iris xiphium. It has the largest bulbs in its subgenus, red-brown and veined, and flowers between February and May. By 2014 it was becoming rare in Morocco. It is not one of the three rhizomatous bearded species (I. pallida, I. florentina, I. germanica) that are dried for years and steam-distilled into orris butter, so what is sold as Iris tingitana material is not orris in the trade sense. Only one bulb constituent, iriskumaonin, is confirmed for the species. No source confirms the irones that give classic orris its powdery-violet character are present at all.

Usage in Perfumery

8 Parfumo placements across 7 brands, absent from Fragrantica's vocabulary. It is the sole iris material in Atelier Cologne Iris Rebelle, alongside Moroccan orange blossom and gaiac wood. Reminiscence Si Do lists it in the heart with French carrot, ylang-ylang, cardamom, cedarwood and clove, which makes the carrot attribution there unusable on its own.