The orris is late, and we are not substituting

Orris is the reason this house has the name it has, and it is the reason we spend more time worrying about a store cupboard than about a formula.

What you are actually buying

Iris rhizome, lifted, cleaned, and then left. The compound that makes it worth anything — irone — is not in the fresh root at all; it develops over years of slow oxidation while the rhizome dries in a loft. Three years is the minimum anybody sells at. Six is what we buy. The material we are opening this spring was lifted in 2020.

So an orris shortage is not a shortage now. It is a decision that somebody made about planting six years ago, and there is nothing anyone can do about it in the current year. The 2020 lift was short. Prices are up around forty percent on our last purchase and the quality spread between lots is wider than we have seen.

What we are not going to do

There are perfectly good synthetic irones. They are not a scandal and half the industry uses them for good reasons, including that they do not require a field and six years.

We are not going to use one in Orris & Ash and keep the name and the price the same. That is the whole of the objection: not that the substitute is bad, but that it would be a different fragrance sold as the same one, and you would have no way of knowing. The panel readings would move, the sixty-two hour figure would move, and the chart on this site would quietly stop being true.

What we are doing instead

Smaller batches, four times a year instead of twice, so the material goes further and the lots get blended less. The price of a 50 ml stays at £145 through this year and we will say so plainly if that changes.

If a batch goes out, it goes out. There is a waiting list; ring the bench and we will put you on it.