Van Gogh's Irises Pictura Fragrans 2024

Original and interesting take on the "dirty iris/violet" trope (which I'm always a big fan of).

It does immediately smell powdery like you would expect it to, but in an unusually "dense", "rounded" way that's not at all easy to describe. If this perfume had a solid consistency that could be touched, it would feel like a paste - coincidentally (or not?), just like the very oil paint Van Gogh himself, in fact, used; if this is intentional and the actual reason behind the name, the vision has been masterfully executed.

So far the most elegant offer from the brand among the ones I've tried, although it’s not a "shiny", light, or sparkly idea of elegance. Above the notes there’s a sort of ceiling of dullness that make the fragrance odder and more comforting at the same time.

(Video review on TikTok @sharpteethstarlet)

I have been privileged enough to be able to visit many great museums and look at the masters of paint and sculptures. My favorite though, is the Van Gogh Museum. It has many of the factors that make you feel like you just saw into the soul of love and the vision of two men who walked thru this world together, with one woman bringing that beauty to the world when both men had passed with little note of importance at the time.

So, you name your perfume after a man who was strange, mercurial and driven to insanity but still saw beauty in all around him? A man who learned to set the mood with vivid color? Bold yet refined? A mix of styles that seems disjointed, but actually comes together in an otherworldly way that makes one stop and realize they have yet to see anything like it? Achieved.

When people speak about a perfume being a color, I had not had the opportunity to experience that till this fragrance. This fragrance is the essence purple with a touch of citrus. It has the bold strokes of strong notes holding the more muted ones together, and it feels like I have not smelled anything like it before. It is beautiful yet strange to my nose, as if from another era or time. I love that it paints a landscape in my mind that does not exist anywhere else. A great introduction to this perfume house and a beautiful ode to Van Gogh.

I wrote a short statement about this a while ago but I don't think it even came close to getting my disgust with this thing across. Let me state first I don't care for the brand itself. Their website is ridden with AI art and seemingly AI generated descriptions. Their descriptions are all some pseudo philosophic/abstract attempts at writing that extra make no sense.

But I digress. I was looking for Iris scents. I was given a sample of this and Iris Cartagena 502 by Bon Parfeumer. The second was awesome, I loved it. I smelled Van Gogh's iris and almost threw up. It's this seemingly random combination of oils and ingredients that all clash with each other. If I were to describe it, I smelled the classic powdery scent of an old lady's scalp, mixed with the smell of carrots, along with an attempt of a clean soapy smell, in a dusty and old church. Somewhere in this scent is also supposed to be an oud note. But god knows where it is.

After I smelled this, right hand on any given Holy book, I became nauseous of everything I owned for a few weeks. My entire collection I could no longer stand. At the time, my collection consisted of Atomic Rose, Lira, Fahrenheit, Wanted by Night, Oud Extrait, Oud Ispahan, and Invictus Legend. I loved all those scents and none of them are anything weird or off putting. But after I smelled Van Gogh's Irises, I suddenly became adverse to all my scents. A whiff of any of them made me throw up in my mouth. I tried to dump out my sample of it and my entire bathroom smelled like it for a night. It was the most unpleasant olfactory experience I've had probably ever.

This scent may be for some people, as noted by the raving reviews beside mine. But it was not for me.

This is a decent orris butter scent. Castoreum is prominent in the opening. However, it is the blackcurrant leaf note that really gets to shine here. It adds a tart sourness to the powdery orris, which makes it interesting and funky. Pretty nice scent, if you like orris. Although, doesn't even come close to Sticky Fingers or any other Bianchi's orris butter masterpieces. It's too modest and mild to be compared to them.

Like, painting-oils. It's so weird on skin I can't even begin to describe it. I hoped that being with orris butter in it and not actually irises it would have been more bearable for me, but nope... Gives me headache nonetheless. A very powdery perfume, even my beloved castoreum is covered by powder. This is a no... Not half as bad as Baba Yaga, but another nope. Hah. Pictura Fragrans is another hit or miss brand.