Iris Macchiato
Auphorie (2018)

The height of hipster artisanal niche hubris, this. Auphorie Iris Macchiato (2018) is not only a classic example of "just because you can doesn't mean you should", but also a case for what happens when you get a huge head of steam and barrel down the jaws of oblivion because hype has you thinking you can do no wrong. Well, this is wrong; very, very, very wrong is this. The smell of makeup powder and spilled coffee, of dolled-up socialites waiting in line at Starbucks staring down their nose at us working stiffs also in same said line trying to get a cup of that lifesblood to start our day, the Frankenstein's monster of of a child mixing two of their disparate favorites together. I used to eat butter popcorn rolled in spinach because I liked them both and was curious if they went together, and they don't. Although if you're the kind of "enlightened urbanite" that fancies bacon on ice cream or think vaporwave soundtracks make "everything feel like the 80s", you'll probably like the idiosyncratic nightmare that is Auphorie Iris Macchiato.

I'll make this brief, as I really do not enjoy this smell. You get an opening of iris, metallic aldehyde, and vanilla bean, then the pungent coffee note comes into play, mixing with a bit of tonka and patchouli to make it rich. The sweetness of the vanilla makes the coffee smell sticky like spilled and dried liquid that's sat uncleaned on a leather couch for days, then a base of musk, sandalwood, benzoin, and that brown sugar sort of note all gourmand-style Auphorie perfumes seem to have. This smells of a roommate with a bad self-care routine (or lack thereof), and lasts forever. You'd have better luck layering Guerlain Shalimar (1925) and Thierry Mugler A*Men (1996) than wearing this. I scrubbed my sample off me ASAP but left it on the card for a day, and it was smelling as if I just sprayed it all over again, so watch it on clothes. Projection is pretty good considering the powdery iris and coffee both go for the throat, but if you wear this in anything but cold weather, you might get sucker-punched by angry passersby, or mistaken for a transient.

I'm not sure where to go from here, because I find this so vile. Auphorie do make some pretty challenging scents and I have unsurprisingly found several of them either middling or unwearable. Despite my histrionics, I have the utmost respect for Eugene and Emyrs Au for making such daring compositions that turn their wearers into unwitting guinea pigs for some secret social experiment, but if you're the indulge-the-strange type who lives for "perfume as art", this is 100% up your alley. I have my limits in this regard, even if I do appreciate artistry and a lack of care concerning mass-appeal or commercialism, but something like Iris Macchiato just pushes my buttons so bad because it smells like spilled trash can juice. I can get behind the mission statement of the house making it, and once more it is good to have a perfumer at any market tier willing to explore or interpret culture from parts of the world usually left uncovered in the industry, but there is just zero redeeming value smelling like spilled coffee dusted with foundation powder. On the other side of things, if you are really interested in this scent combination, I encourage you to ignore my words and go for it, because you won't find anything else like this out there. Thumbs down.

I've always had a lowest category fragrance I called insta-scrubs. Iris Macchiato gives fresh meaning to that term. I've never experienced a scent that made me inwardly scream "GET IT OFF! GET IT OOOOOOOFFFFFFF!" in its very first second. I was frantic, in full panic mode. I grabbed my manicure bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a cotton ball to wipe at it because my back is hurt and the sink seemed too far away. I went through six well soaked cotton balls and then looked at them lying on my table and thought "I have to rid of these things."

But how? Bury them in the yard? Not with a hurt back and in the dark. Throw them in the kitchen trash? That wouldn't do any good...I'd just have a stinky kitchen. Throw them outside on the deck? Could work, but the smell of putrid meat, blood, and vomit might attract a possum.

I sealed them inside a ziplock freezer bag, and as I type I am wondering...

What am I going to do with this ziplock bag??? Bury it in the back yard? Not with a hurt back...

Despite being a caffeine fiend, coffee is not my thing. It makes me nauseous. If an estate agent were to take me to a house smelling of the stuff (a common sales trick, I am told), I'd be inclined to walk right back out the door. But being an Auphorie follower, I felt I couldn't avoid trying this even if it threatened to be a Sécrétions Magnifique-type experience for me. Maybe the iris would save it, but then No 15, their other perfume supposedly centred around iris hadn't really delivered on that promise.
Well, after much dithering, there was nothing else to do but press that sprayer…
And sure enough a basso profundo ogre's-breath coffee top note spewed out – uncompromisingly bitter, caramelized/burnt, deep in the grounds and yet with a certain almost-milky smoothness. This stuff was oceanic and for coffee lovers it is bound to be a head rush. Curiously, much as I dislike coffee, none of the associated nausea was materializing. I was surprised at how mellow and indulgent this was feeling, addictive even, prompting me to go for another spray. Iris Macchiato, while still undoubtedly about the espresso, seemed to get creamier and rounder all the time, and I wondered whether this effect was the result of the benevolent working of the musk.
This was the beginning of a long, slow transition, with first the perfume's throw getting a temperate chocolate aspect, airborne and light, before increasing abstraction with gentle woody and sweetish tones coming into play. Once again, I felt the iris was proving elusive to my nose until it dawned that this delicate woody sweetness is the Auphorie interpretation of this note.
What can I say? This is an expertly blended perfume. If it can give a coffee hater like me a good ride, that's saying something about the craft involved here.