Iris Ghalia Ensar Oud / Oriscent 2019 Parfum

Iris Ghalia (Parfum) by Ensar Oud / Oriscent

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9.0 / 10 181 Ratings

A popular perfume by Ensar Oud / Oriscent 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

Blackcurrant

Siberian deer musk

Ambergris

Castoreum

Muskrat

Violet

Iris

Mysore sandalwood

Papua oud

Spices

Bakul attar

Carnation

Civet

Himalaya costus root

Ratings

Scent

9.0181 Ratings

Longevity

8.9166 Ratings

Sillage

8.4165 Ratings

Bottle

8.4156 Ratings

Value for money

6.7112 Ratings

Submitted by Carlossp, last update on 06/10/2025.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Iris Ghalia Attar

Iris Ghalia: Trifecta

Iris Blanc

Oud Sultani: Kelantan

Mūsīqá Oud

Cuoium

Reviews

5 in-depth fragrance descriptions

08/15/2023

10
Scent

DrB1414
235 Reviews

DrB1414

5

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.

06/10/2025

ClaireV
649 Reviews

ClaireV

1

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.

02/03/2024

6
Pricing 8
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 7.5
Scent

Lauser93
881 Reviews

Translated Show original

Lauser93

5

A little too over the top for me

Many thanks to Nick for the bottling of Iris Ghalia Parfum :-) Yes, this is once again a really intense fragrance. In the end, I don't like it because of the top note, even if it is certainly well made for certain lovers of this fragrance. The longevity is strong at around 12 hours and the sillage is not to be sneezed at either.

The top note smells very intensely of sticky labdanum, licorice, prunes and ribwort syrup. The heart note is initially carried by blackcurrant and then moves into floral notes. These include blue lotus blossom, iris, garden carnations, bakul attar and violet. The base smells quite animalic but, to my surprise, within a pleasant framework. Hyraceum provides notes of musk, civet, oud and tobacco. Bibergeil also resonates here.

In the end, I'm not overwhelmed by the animal notes. The fragrance is simply too heavy for me and even my best friend was a little taken aback. Ensar Oud fragrances are simply special.

04/26/2025

6
Pricing 9
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

Sirbennyone
293 Reviews

Translated Show original

Sirbennyone

6

Everything will be fine one day / A (too) late realization....

Hello everyone,

tonight I would like to write something again and this is about the "Iris Ghalia (perfume) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent". Today a bigger prehistory = here we go.

In 2023 or almost 2024, I tested all versions of the V1, V2, V3 series and the then newly released V4. I'll come to the direct characteristic of V4 later, but those samples had been acquired almost 3/4 of a year since then and I emptied them, even if I found this a little more difficult with versions 1 - 3 than the 4 version, because I found them very demanding and a little..., let's call it over-excited / not too aggressive, but already discreetly exhausting and somehow I wasn't ready for it at the time.

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

In the end, I forgot about that "Iris Ghalia (perfume) | Ensar Oud / Oriscent" V4 = until recently! There was always something that fascinated me about it, almost 2 months ago I bought the Purple Rain: Trifecta and I LOVE it really hard (!) and shortly before that I read that the Iris Ghalia Parfum (V2) is supposed to be its base, I was spontaneously spurred on again..., BUT.... (!)

Almost half a year ago I had the Iris Ghalia: Trifecta (review also available) and it was really MEGA difficult and for that reason alone I was a bit more reserved about it and crazy as I am sometimes I bought an Iris Ghalia Parfum V4 in a 50ml version and I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I made here!
____________

Now finally to the fragrance:

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

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

After just under an hour, the fragrance shows its true self and reveals this side that made Iris Ghalia Parfum so successful = this mix of the creamy iris, the blue almost cool lotus, the ambergris and these perfectly matched spices that release a light oriental flair and in the background the musk and the oud = which NEVER push themselves into the foreground but are there.

All these aspects make the Iris Ghalia Parfum V4 one of my favorite Ensar Oud fragrances.

On the subject of H/S:

You can tell from my rating and from the other/existing ratings that the Iris Ghalia Parfum performs very well ;) and I can't say anything bad about it!

Can I say anything not so nice at all?

If I'm honest it's very very difficult for me, but yes there are 2 (small) things.

Firstly, for new/ inexperienced fragrance noses or people who have an aversion to scents like beaver + muskrat, the scent can be too demanding, too over the top and too annoying for the first hour.

(From today's point of view, I no longer feel this way, certainly there are moments when I think "but he's going forward", but I have experienced something different...)

And the other point that makes me feel negative is the price. We don't even have to begin to TALK about the fact that prices of 25€ (and more) per ml are almost far from "GOOD and BAD" for a person who doesn't love the hobby as much as we do - for him it's incomprehensible anyway, but what the Iris Ghalia Parfum has experienced in terms of price in recent years is soon no longer normal in my opinion... Versions in a leather case (V1 and V3) are well over 40€ ... and everyone has to decide for themselves whether it's worth it anyway. For me it's so relative and a personal thing that 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 easiest to wear, but that's also very relative, as you know.

Another small - big tip:

Never judge a high-priced + high-quality fragrance solely by the way it smells on the spray head. Because this picture is not truthful! It smells completely different on the skin. I often say this - I know, but this is extreme!

And now have a nice day/evening, or whatever you read this review, LG the Benny
_______

11/20/2023

6
Pricing 8
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 9.5
Scent

SirOriental
1 Review

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SirOriental

Helpful Review 4

The royal iris from the Sultan!

Admittedly, it took some time to reach the status in my fragrance journey of thinking about Ensar Oud fragrances, let alone owning any. The absolute high-end price and the somewhat thick marketing kept me from ordering or testing an EO until early last year. A few niche fragrances later, however, a scent from Ensar Oud appealed to me so much that I ordered a 15ml, I hardly dare to say it, blind!!!! Three guesses which one it was - right! - Iris Ghalia - version 3 or 4 (I don't know the exact difference between the two versions).

First of all, I have to say that I absolutely adore iris as a fragrance. I like this powdery, buttery yet earthy, floral fragrance aura that surrounds you as soon as you spray on fragrances with a high natural iris component. Since Iris Ghalia is supposed to be the spearhead here, there was no stopping me and I just had to get myself a bottle!

I still remember the day Iris Ghalia arrived at my home via express delivery. With shaky hands, I opened the package and the small Ensar Oud box inside. There it was - my first Ensar - a tiny 15 ml bottle with the silver label - Iris Ghalia. Less than two seconds later, I very cautiously pressed the spray head and an extremely oily layer covered the back of my hand.
A few seconds later, something olfactorily followed that I hardly thought possible. I got goosebumps, simply because of the beauty of this fragrance!

Yes - it starts off quite animalic due to the high proportion of natural animal ingredients such as ambergris, musk, hyraceum, castorium and muskrat. However, the iris, which is present right from the start, and the incredibly natural-looking notes of redcurrant and peach quickly subdue the initial animalic quality and Iris Ghalia becomes floral, fruity and creamy after just 2-3 minutes, with an incredible sparkling quality that is almost reminiscent of Coca Cola (probably comes from the Tibetan musk in combination with ambergris)

The cola note, which I have now also been able to smell in other Ensar Oud fragrances, I perceive for almost the entire very long-lasting fragrance. Iris Ghalia becomes - I assume due to the high iris component - more and more syrupy and the result is an interplay of iced tea peach and sparkling cola. The scent also becomes more and more floral due to the iris and the blue lotus! In the background, there is always an animalic presence, which ensures that the fragrance never becomes too sweet. Overall, IG has an extreme progression and therefore never gets boring!

As is typical for Ensar, the ingredients are incredibly well interwoven, creating a true work of art! For a purely natural fragrance, it lasts an extremely long time. I get a good 10 hours of longevity and the sillage is also quite strong in the first few hours. Despite its animalic nature, Iris Ghalia is definitely one of the most mass-market Ensar Ouds and can therefore be worn in "western spheres" to evening events without having to worry about being looked at the wrong way!

Finally, I would like to make a small correction to the exaggerated marketing of EO briefly mentioned above: Now that I am a few olfactory experiences richer, I can say that you can smell the absolute high-end quality of Ensar Oud and there are actually probably few to no perfume houses out there that have such great vintage ingredients and can showcase them as skillfully as Ensar Oud!
So I've mutated from a slight skeptic to a fan and am eagerly awaiting more works of art from this house!

As you can probably guess from my enthusiasm, Iris Ghalia was the beginning of my fascination with the world of Artisan - especially Ensar Oud. I now own other equally great Ensar Oud fragrances, as well as an additional 30ml bottle of Iris Ghalia.
A few Ensar Oud fragrances later, I can say without a doubt that Iris Ghalia will always be one of my absolute favorites from the house. A truly royal iris from the Sultan, perfectly staged by Ensar Oud! A real Iris Ghalia!!!