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Feuchtwarme Irisperlen # noch schlafwarme Körper # menschelnd/seidig/pudrig # Rinnsal einer Petroleumspur # Haut an Haut.Moschus. # sensuelle Ästhetik pur (by Seejungfrau)

Feuchtwarme Irisperlen noch schlafklammer Körper # menschelnd•seidig•pudrig # Rinnsal einer Petroleumspur # Kopfhaut•Moschus # Sensuelle Ästhetik•Pur (by Seejungfrau)

Iris Ghalia Ensar Oud 2019 Parfum

8.8 / 10 204 Ratings

A popular perfume by Ensar Oud for women and men, released in 2019. The scent is animal-floral. Projection and longevity are above-average. The production was apparently discontinued.
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Main accords

Animal

Floral

Fruity

Woody

Spicy

Fragrance Notes

Blue lotus

Hyraceum

Orris butter Peach

Peach

Siberian deer musk

Ambergris

Blackcurrant

Castoreum

Muskrat

Violet

Iris

Mysore sandalwood

Papua oud

Spices

Bakul attar

Carnation

Civet

Himalaya costus root

Ratings

Scent

8.8204 Ratings

Longevity

8.8186 Ratings

Sillage

8.3186 Ratings

Bottle

8.3176 Ratings

Value for money

6.5131 Ratings

Submitted by Carlossp · last update on 03/02/2026.

Source-backed & verified

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Iris Ghalia Attar

Iris Ghalia: Trifecta

Iris Blanc

Croatian Iris

Oud Sultani: Kelantan

Mūsīqá Oud

Reviews

7 in-depth fragrance descriptions

08/15/2023

10Scent

DrB1414
283 Reviews

DrB1414

Helpful Review 7

Holy Grail Orris

Review based on the 2019 first version. I personally don't like the rest, although the 3rd is closest, while the 2nd version lacks the animalic quality and oompf, and the 4th is the worst, almost feels like a downgraded version of what this originally was.

To me, this is the Orris Holy Grail perfume. I'm quite familiar with the material in its natural form, and I think here, it is not only showcased in full glory and spectrum but also complemented and perfected by the use of precisely chosen ingredients. This might be Ensar's most precise and finely tuned blend, as everything fits in its place, and follows in a methodical manner, nothing is out of place, everything falls where it should, at the right moment. Smelling this is like witnessing a full-scale opera.

The opening is effervescent, spicy, and fruity. Overripe blackcurrant and peaches, hot spices, creating an effervescent sweet fruity opening that takes your breath away. It almost feels like having a sip of an all-natural effervescent fruit beverage.
The heart is Orris in full glory, perfectly supported by Lotus and Lilly. The Lotus shares its watery and green qualities with the Orris, creating a most beautiful accord. The Orris is rich, buttery, just a tad powdery.
The base is loaded with Ambergris and various musks, to lend their animalic qualities and darken the composition, as the perfume steers surely but gradually from inoffensive fruity, to mature and serene, toward dark, warm, and mysterious.

This is all natural yet performance is out of this world. Two sprays on your wrists and you'll fill the entire room, and anesthetize your brain with this intoxicating concoction. Longevity is all day, or till you shower.
The Original Iris Ghalia is the pinnacle of what natural perfumery can be when using the highest quality ingredients, and maybe some luck in striking the perfect harmony between them. I don't think they'll pull this one off again, but if they do, I'll gladly pick up another bottle, if I don't find enough backups till then. Top-class perfumery.

07/09/2025

9.5Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

Fravitt
23 Reviews

Fravitt

2

Just one word: WOW

Iris Ghalia is the most elegant iris-based perfume I have ever smelled. The opening has a slightly alcoholic undertone, probably due to the fusion of musk and costus, which adds an intriguing note.

With time, the fragrance softens and the musk emerges with an enveloping softness, while the iris maintains a modern, clean sophistication, far from the classic talcum powder.

The composition has a strong animal component, thanks to notes such as hyraceum and civet, which give depth and character without being aggressive.

Updated on 07/15/2025

06/10/2025

ClaireV
969 Reviews

ClaireV

2

Orris wrapped in a filthy fur stole

Iris Ghalia by Ensar Oud makes for an unconventional iris but a reassuringly traditional Ghaliyah*. It takes the gin-and-ice ethereality of orris and dispassionately sets it up to either thrive or fail against an onslaught by grungiest, most uncouth cast of characters ever licked up from a zoo floor – castoreum from the anal glands of a beaver, warm-scalpy costus root, calcified urine scraped off a rock (hyraceum), and saliva-ish musk grains scooped out of the undercarriage of some poor unsuspecting Tibetan deer. And that’s before we even talk about the marshwater skank of natural ambergris.

Yeah, it was never going to be a fair fight. If you have any experience at all, then you go into Iris Ghalia knowing that it is only a matter of time before quivering silver bloom of the iris is subsumed by the powerful animalics. But the perfumer has sought to stack the deck a little in favor of the iris by flanking it with a sharp, fresh accord that is one third citrus peel, one third plant juice, and one third piano rosin. Therefore, you get that first dopamine hit of warm, plush iris (smelling divinely of antique wood furniture, old books, and closed-up mansions) and just as the sugary deer musk bubbles up to nip at its heels, your nose flashes on the shrill, metallic greenery of violet leaf and the funky cat pee fruitiness of blackcurrant leaf. Together these notes form a citric-resinous barricade around the iris, allowing it to stand up and assert itself just a little longer.

Iris Ghalia also benefits by being a spray and not an attar or an oily distillate, because a note as ephemeral as iris needs its own space (think a whole castle rather than a room). For a while, the notes teeter, achieving a precarious balance between something very classical and something very grunge-indie-artisanal. Of course, in the end, it is inevitable that the warm animalic notes begin to tighten around the trembling neck of the iris like a dirty fur stole. The musks, which start out smelling as sweet and as dusty as powdered sugar sifted over a hot wolf, grow ever staler by the minute, a time-lapse video of animal fur collapsing into decay over the course of a week.

All this might prove heavy going indeed were it not for the persistent effervescence of a bright Coca Cola note running like ambient noise in the background. I suspect that some combination of the iris and the powdery musks is what’s conjuring this effect. But at times it also smells like all those minor aspects of benzoin – brown sugar, crackling brown paper, camphor, mint gum, and yes, Coca Cola – that only ever come out when benzoin is left alone to do its own thing rather than called in to serve as a member of the fantasy amber trope or as a rough stand in for vanilla. No benzoin listed, by the way. Pure conjecture on my part.

Anyway, no matter how it’s configured, the contrast works. And it seems to be a series of contrasts, rather than just one thing. Notes-wise, you have something quite funky and animalic (scalpy) – the musks, the ambergris, and so on – jutting right up against something quite ethereal or even effervescent – the iris, benzoin, the powdered sugar of the Tibetan deer musk. But there is also a textural contrast between the greasy/leathery and the dusty/sparkling. In terms of ‘taste’, the contrast between the intensely sugariness of the musks and the sourness of the funky, leathery castoreum in the tailbone is clearly no afterthought either. (Flanked by the saliva-ish musks, I find the murkiness of the castoreum to be very similar to the bases of other Ensar Oud scents, most notably Chypre Sultan, but the innovation here is all in that Coca Cola effervescence).

All in all, a novel idea. The sharp, greyish, concrete-like violet leaf (think Kerbside Violet by Lush) shoring up the elegant woodiness of the iris, the powdered sugar musks, the swelling chorus of animal gland secrete, just licked skin, and that miles-deep, bubbly Coca Cola sweetness. Could I pull it off on the regular? Probably not – it feels too much like hard work at times, and it is incredibly heavy. Yet I found Iris Ghalia a tremendously exciting scent to wear.

*Ghaliyah, meaning ‘most precious’ or ‘most fragrant’ depending on the source, is a common type of mukhallat in the Middle East. These were once all-natural affairs containing real ambergris, musks, oud, and spices, offered primarily to royal princes and members of the ruling class.

01/05/2022

10Scent 9Longevity 9Sillage

Genesis666
14 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Genesis666

Top Review 42

All good things come in threes. - Iris Ghalia 3.0 -

The term "Ghalia" comes from Arabic and means something like "precious" or "of inestimable value." It serves both as a female first name - although rather rare - and as a description for extremely valuable things that are actually reserved for the royal families of the Emirates.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of testing or even owning a fragrance from EO knows that Ensar, Adam, and Co. make no compromises when it comes to luxury and quality. This is reflected not only in the extraordinary scent experience but also in the price. However, when the addition "Ghalia" appears in the name, one can expect quite a bit, as it signifies not only that Ensar is particularly proud of this creation but also that materials from the "Royal Archive" of Sultan Qaboos, who was Sultan of Oman until his death in 2020, have once again found their place here. In the case of Iris Ghalia, it is ancient deer musk from Tibet and "Royal Ambergris."

The current version is already the third edition of this fragrance. Unfortunately, I only received my first sample after both previous versions had already sold out. For weeks, I chased a bottle, but no one even thought about selling it. A few weeks ago, the news came that there would now be a third, supposedly further improved version. An "Encore" of the original version. What was the difference between IG1 and IG2? In the original, three ingredients were used that were omitted in the second edition to make it less animalic and thus more "mass-appealing." In the third and current edition, these three ingredients are now back in use.

1. "Hyraceum" or "Africa Stone": This is the fossilized feces of the rock hyrax from South Africa. These usually centuries-old fragments are collected, dissolved in alcohol, and then used in the form of a tincture as a fixative in high-quality perfumes.

2. Castoreum or beaver musk: This secretion from a beaver's gland is described as extremely leathery, smoky, and animalic. It often serves as a base in classic leather accords.

3. Muskrat: This is essentially the same type of secretion as beaver musk, but it comes from a related species, the muskrat. In its pure form, this substance is described as even more animalic and is referred to by Ensar himself as "incredibly repulsive."

For those who (rightly) have concerns about the ethics of using such animal ingredients, it should be noted that Ensar Oud now exclusively relies on old stocks from the Arab royal families. In those times, these animals were not only hunted for their precious ingredients but were also fully utilized and served, among other things, as food.

Enough backstory - let's get to the scent itself.
I must admit that the opening can be a bit demanding or even overwhelming for "untrained noses." An explosion of impressions. On one hand, a floral, slightly powdery yet soft, almost creamy-buttery iris, on the other hand, fruity, zesty notes like blackcurrant and peach. As if that weren't enough, this cocktail is also contrasted by a whole battalion of animalic notes. In the opening, ambergris and musk are mainly prominent. The ambergris provides a slightly salty, mineral touch. The Tibetan musk adds a lightly sweet, sparkling note. I must say that I always perceive the Tibetan musk variant as sweet and sparkling, almost candied. To me, it bears little resemblance to Siberian musk, which often carries a slightly urinous touch.

Once the initial "storm" has settled a bit, the fragrance reveals its incredible beauty. The combination of iris, fruits, and blue lotus creates for me an image of freshly brewed black or Earl Grey tea. The spices add a certain depth and ensure that the opening does not become too thin. After a few minutes, the musk also comes through again. It gives the fragrance a special sweetness and sharpness. The initially rather bitter tea almost transforms into a lightly sweetened, natural peach iced tea.

Over the course of the first 1-2 hours, the fragrance becomes more bitter and smoky again. At times, a dry, leathery note fights its way through from the background. Castoreum and Hyraceum create an olfactory structure that reminds me of dry pipe tobacco with a hint of vanilla aroma. The not listed but definitely perceptible Maroke-Oud from the agarwood species "Aquilaria Filaria" contributes to a substantial portion of dark but not scratchy smoke in the base, which acts as a perfect counterpoint to the fruity-floral powdery iris.

In general, one can say that in this fragrance, no note overpowers another. Everything seems perfectly balanced once again. Ensar himself describes Iris Ghalia as his greatest challenge to date. According to his statement, there has been no fragrance that he has discarded and rebuilt as often as this one. Iris is not only one of the most expensive ingredients (about €70,000-90,000 /kg) but also one of the hardest to "tame."

Even in the drydown, the top notes are still well perceivable in the scent cloud around you. The fragrance remains somehow holistic from beginning to end and seems never to dissolve into individual components. However, this does not mean in the slightest that the fragrance is linear. It behaves almost like a chameleon. Sometimes it shows itself as fruity, leathery. Sometimes smoky, floral. Sometimes powdery, zesty. Each nuance always accompanied by a perfect counterpart. Almost Yin and Yang in spray format. Despite the iris as the main character, Iris Ghalia is, of course, not comparable in the slightest to classic iris representatives like Prada L’homme or Dior Homme Intense, Parfum, etc. I see scents in colors and structures, and this fragrance evokes images of blue-violet watercolors on canvas in my mind.

Projection and longevity are extremely good for a 100% natural fragrance! 12-14 hours are easily achievable. The first 5 hours, IG projects incredibly strongly, but even afterwards, the fragrance never becomes a "skin scent." Of course, it cannot compete with synthetic beasts like Montale, etc., but that is not their intention at all.
Despite the occasionally really rich but, in my opinion, never exaggerated animalic notes, this fragrance is one of the "most wearable" creations from EO that I own and know. It is perceived extremely positively by those around me and is the one with the highest "compliment factor" among all my EO fragrances, alongside EO02 Kashmir and EO03, my personal favorite. If I had to choose just one fragrance from my collection, it would probably be this one. It simply unites so many complex impressions and emotions that it takes some time to truly understand it.

Admittedly… alongside many releases lately that have not captivated me at all, Ensar has created another masterpiece with Iris Ghalia 3.0. At least for my nose.

Updated on 02/03/2022

04/26/2025

10Scent 9Longevity 8Sillage

Sirbennyone
515 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Sirbennyone

7

Eventually, everything will be fine / A (too) late realization....

Hello everyone,

For this evening, I want to write something again, and this is about the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent." Today, I’ll share a longer backstory = here we go.

In 2023, or almost 2024, I tested all versions of the series V1, V2, V3, and the freshly released V4 at that time. I will get to the direct characteristics of V4 later, but I had those samples for about 3/4 of a year since purchase, and I finished them, even though I found the versions 1 - 3 a bit more challenging than the 4th version, as I perceived them as very demanding and somewhat..., let’s call it over the top / not too aggressive, but still subtly exhausting, and somehow I wasn’t ready for that back then.

It was a time when I was very, very dissatisfied with everything (fragrance stuff), and I wanted to learn more. I was already familiar with this "high-priced" brand but had avoided it until then...

Ultimately, I forgot about the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" V4 = until recently! There was always something that fascinated me about it, and about 2 months ago, I bought the "Purple Rain: Trifecta | Ensar Oud / Oriscent," and I REALLY LOVE it (!) and shortly before that, I read that the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" (V2) is supposed to be its foundation, which spontaneously reignited my interest..., BUT.... (!)

About half a year ago, I had the "Iris Ghalia: Trifecta | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" (review also available), and that one was really MEGA difficult, and just because of that, I was a bit more reserved. And crazy as I sometimes am, I bought a "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" V4 in a 50ml variant, and I can openly and honestly say it was one of the best decisions I’ve made here!
____________

Now finally to the scent:

This is not about V1 - V3, but about V4!

It starts off a bit fruity (not much, but it is noticeable), and the scent is somewhat demanding in the first hour due to the castoreum and musk, BUT it is NOT repulsive and unpleasant, but it is there.

After about an hour, the scent reveals its true self, showing the side that made the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" so successful = this mix of creamy iris, the blue almost cool lotus, the amber, and these perfectly balanced spices that release a slight oriental flair, with musk and oud in the background = which never push themselves to the forefront but are present.

All these aspects make the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" V4 one of my favorite fragrances from Ensar Oud.

Regarding H/S:

You can see from my rating and the other existing reviews that the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" scores quite well ;) and I can’t say anything bad about it!

Can I even say something not so nice?

To be honest, I find it very, very hard, but yes, there are 2 (small) things.

On the one hand, for new/untrained noses or people who have an aversion to notes like castoreum + musk, the scent can be too demanding, too exaggerated, and too annoying in the first hour.

(From today’s perspective, I don’t feel that way anymore; certainly, there are moments when I think, "this one is quite forward," but I’ve experienced it differently before...)

And the other point that bothers me negatively is the price. We don’t even need to talk about the fact that prices of €25 (and more) per ml are practically far removed from "GOOD and BAD" for someone who doesn’t love this hobby as we do - for them, it’s incomprehensible anyway, but what the "Iris Ghalia (Parfum) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" has experienced in terms of pricing in recent years is, in my opinion, soon no longer normal... Versions in leather cases (V1 and V3) are well over €40... and whether it’s worth it, everyone has to decide for themselves. For me, it’s relatively personal, and I don’t want to say anything about it.

If a bottle is too expensive for you, try the V4. In my opinion, it’s the softer one and the one that can be worn the easiest, but that is, of course, very relative.

One small - big tip:

Never evaluate a high-priced + high-quality fragrance solely based on how it smells at the spray head. Because that image is not truthful! It smells completely different in connection with the skin. I often say this - I know, but this is extreme!

And now have a nice day/evening or whenever you read this review, best regards, Benny
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