Description
Let there be light! And darkness no more. He who wishes does not have a black soul! “I will come as a thief …” said Christ; certainly in silence and probably, for him, wearing shoes. To deserve his title, the Thief must act under the wide-open eye of the absent owners. In this case, it is not that tenuous eye with which Cain stares without regret, but another, which in some way will make an accomplice of Abel. If the fetishes, idols and charms of the Museum of Man, in Paris, had not met the 20th century, everyone would have missed that incredible mockery of Eros which The Young Ladies of Avignon certainly is. “The Negros had understood that everything which surrounds us is our enemy”, the wizard Picasso said to his paintbrush. Who, if not one of them, decided on life, by death, would dare, to unclench the teeth of this sex of the world: fear. Since it is the fruit of our entrails, it must be elevated. For that, not fearing incest, we will embrace it. In this way, she will give birth to our most beautiful monsters. That is how, a little rusty by dint of doubts, my steps have rejoined La vierge de fer (the Iron Maiden); that lily amongst the thorns.
Serge Lutens La Vierge De Fer was launched in 2013.
vamdam – :
I am so glad I took a risk and blind bought this. It is thankfully all lily and pear on me. not a hint of metallic note on me and usually my nose turns up at any weird notes. This is a slightly cold, demure and lady-like scent to me.
strij – :
A new review,
sometimes it takes a while to fully appreciate Serge Lutens creations.
Cloud of wonderful incense with pear and a metallic vibe.
Surely angels smell like this?
Or concubines… or succubus?
Glory, Glory hallelujah!
…Or forever rein Queen Lilith?
kr1dok – :
Beautiful lily fragrance. Fleshy and sweet with distant whispers of a Samsara like sandalwood base. I don’t see why a flower loving man couldn’t wear this.
Savr – :
Beautiful beautiful. Wow this is not the usual Serge Lutens to me. Such a gorgeous white floral. Seems like the longevity will be good. Almost takes a Hawaiian scent turn on me. I’m hoping the sillage is good. I may have to decant it into a spray bottle.
Highly recommended. To me this is a women’s fragrance not unisex at all.
kaiaserg – :
The quality and the uniqueness of this winner piece of art is stellar!! ✨
nataroeva – :
A very interesting modern floral from the eclectic Serge Lutens line. The perfume whose name translates to “The Iron Maiden” opens with a burst of lily (that stays throughout the length of stay) and pear. The heart reveals a slight metallic note and the perfume dries into a powdery base of incense and sandalwood with the lily still dominating. This is a cold, modern, and icy floral. Well blended with moderate to strong projection and long lasting. Unisex leans feminine. Recommended for daring ladies and men not afraid of smelling a bit floral. Enjoy.
panas – :
In their roles as artistic director and perfumer, Lutens and Sheldrake have explored their central woody accord many times, taking it in a syrupy-spiced direction with Arabie, Miel de Bois and Daim Blond and in a more overtly gourmand direction with Un Bois Vanille and Five O’Clock au Gingembre. Overall, there’s been a tendency to hold close their to their signature wood/fruit compositional style but with their soli-floral perfumes Sheldrake and Lutens range much further afield. The perfumes run from pretty and tame (Sa Majesté la Rose & Un Lys) to ferocious (Tubereuse Criminelle & Iris Silver Mist*). La Vierge de Fer falls in line with two other perfumes the brand, A La Nuit (2000) and Datura Noir (2001). Let’s call them the Crass Florals.
All three of the Crass Florals share an over-the-topness that defuses any solemnity the Lutens line might have accrued over the years. Lutens himself has seen enough fashion over the years that he seems to know to pepper ‘serious’ design with camp. La Vierge de Fer’s depiction of lily is less olfacto-realistic than A La Nuit’s jasmine but only slightly so. The unexpected lily-pear pairing takes a moment to come into focus clearly but once it does, it makes perfect sense. The two aromas, the flower and the fruit, share a musky connection that might not be obvious but is smartly manipulated by Sheldrake, who makes the unexpected pairing fit together perfectly. The prickly mouth feel of a bite of pear is recreated with a shellac-like musky tone that cuts sweetness and allows flavor to shine through just as it does in a pear on the cusp of ripeness. La Vierge de Fer’s lily is green and expansive, quite different than the wafting vanillic lily Sheldrake composed for Lutens Un Lys. The pairing of flower and fruit is angular but not jarring and has less sting than the lost pear–florals Jean-Michel Duriez created for Jean Patou.
La Vierge de Fer lacks Datura Noir syrup but shares the luminosity and billowing projection suggestive of tropical climes. Also like Datura Noir, La Vierge maintains super-sized proportions into the hearnotes but finds a more tenable scale by dry-down. The lily remains coherent throughout and the perfume neither loses its shape nor collapses into a ‘skin scent’ and demonstrates Sheldrake’s particular talent for coherent, satisfying drydowns.
La Vierge de Fer provided a welcome break in the grey drift of Lutens’s recent Oedipal florals. 2013’s La Vierge de Fer was preceded by the receding-carnation of 2011’s Vitriol d’Oeillet and followed by the bleak white-out of 2014’s l’Orpheline and grey skies of 2015’s La Religieuse. The muffled, blanketing tones of these woody florals seem at odds with the specificity of many of the line’s earlier florals. They were framed by cryptic allusions by Lutens to revisited childhood memories and distant female authority figures. I believe they were intended to convey a sort of meditative sense of distance and isolation but as a collection they don’t build on each other to express anything but an uncomfortable listlessness.
Vierge de Fer started in the Palais Royal Exclusive line (the bell jars) and eventually found its way to the export line (the rectangular spray bottles.) I came to The Iron Maiden out of sequence, well after The Caustic Carnation, The Orphan and The Nun. The name and the general trend in the Lutens line led me to expect a dirge of a perfume but La Vierge de Fer is neither torturous, as the name implies, nor grim like the other latter-day Lutens florals.
* Yeah, iris is a root but is described qualitatively as a floral scent.
from scenthurdle.com
Федор Матвеевич – :
Softly, softly.
Lilly & pear whisper across the skin.
… a bit to sutble for winter.
I’ll wait till summer to give a full review I think.
that said its very mature.
(I should add floral scents are very new for me, as in the liking of, not normally a flower girl, more a unisex woman, I’m only just coming to grips with my fascination for Datura Noir, not normally my speed at all.
but I love pear. fingers crossed.
update: ……Glory, Glory helliujah !
shekspir61 – :
To follow up with @tigerlillian, I also have a character in mind that suits this scent.
Auri from The King Killer Chronicles.
Fragile, ethereal, motherly, a little broken.
axiles20082008 – :
(Review from a sample)
This is the first Lutens that I actually quite dislike, unfortunately. I’ll explain.
First and foremost, what I smell is mainly lily and pear, followed by something weird and metallic, the “metallic notes”; I can’t smell any incense or sandalwood. It has moderate projection and longevity.
The problems are these: first, the pear is quite synthetic to my nose, compared to the one found in the cheapie Legni Fruttati by L’Erbolario, for example; second and most importantly, it is powdery in a bad way, as if I was actually sniffing some powder and half choking myself. I know it sounds ridiculous haha, but it really irritated my nose and my eyes, which feel super dry now. I don’t know, it is as if I had put my face in a bag of powder and inhaled it… Not very pleasant. So nope, this is a pass for me, unfortunately.
vvnbtn – :
Sweet, powdery pear and lily. Simple. Smells nice, not sharp, but smells like a designer scent. Over priced in my opinion.
bmz006Negeltzex – :
very similar to une voix noire. I just feel a nice lily and no other note. too feminine.7/10
miqael – :
Although far removed from the stewed fruits and syrupy woods of the bulk of Serge’s work, LVdF is still most definitely a Lutensian frag. It shares a good chunk of DNA with Une Voix Noire, and more than a passing relation to Sarrasins, De Profundis and A La Nuit.
LVdF opens with dark green florals. The opening is deep, and rich, without being at all thick or creamy. Think emerald stained glass rather than white porcelain. The florals here are sharp without being piercing. It’s certainly a loud, white floral, but not in a traditional, bombastic sense. I find this lily spine to be ‘pure’, rather than ‘clean’. It’s a relatively uncomplicated note, clean in it’s simplicity, but not especially “clean” in a soap and musk kind of way.
The experience is rather ethereal. Otherworldly, strange, metallic. There’s a touch of sweetness from the pear, gently stewed/sugared in traditional Serge style. But where Une Voix Noire turns sweet and dank and smoky, LVdF heads in a different, far less human/animalic direction. The middle reveals a crystalline lily playing out over icy cold, razor sharp metallic notes, with a hint of cold incense in the background.
Much like Une Voix Noire, this strikes me as an artistic vision of a soliflore, rather than a photo realistic representation. It captures the impressions and associations of lilies rather than the actual scent, and is all the more stunning for it.
The overall impression is transparent, dark, cold, a little sad even. But simultaneously painfully beautiful. Cold steel and emerald green, with iced lilies dancing above.
Performance is pretty decent. Sillage is at the upper end of moderate, and longevity is surprisingly good. Despite being largely a soliflore, this sits equally well on a man or a woman. The metallic underscore makes this unusual enough to defy gender stereotypes.
Enjoy on cool evenings while indulging in shady dealings and questionable life choices.
samael – :
Beautiful melancholic perfume. It does have a surface clean, shampoo-like aroma from the lily/pear combination, but when you smell closer it’s richer and more multi-nuanced. The merger of incense and metallic notes to the lily makes it too sorrowful and doleful for me. It’s the smell of a dirge, a haunting lament in perfume for the virgin of iron.
Zim91 – :
La Vierge De Fer has the same sparkling pear-champagne feel as Armani Idole, where Idole glints with gold, and La Vierge De Fer twinkles with a *wa-shingggg* of a needle of a dainty steel sword being drawn.
However, this is not an intimidating iron maiden of a scent. This is more befitting of Arya Stark (Game of Thrones) — young, girly, prepubescent, undertaking fencing lessons, unknowingly before the onset of her quest to avenge the death of her family as they are picked off one by one.
Virginal and pure to open, rather fruity and innocent; given time musk (rather than sandalwood) augments a fresh fleur-de-lys with hints of jasmine and freesia, delivering some integrity.
Simple and despite the designer scent-like opening, I really enjoy the drydown of easy fresh flowers with a hint of soft woody, fruity shampoo. However I find the name rather ironic.
ngk418Bessinepome – :
This reminds me of Diorissimo. I’m not sure of the current version but around the end of the 70’s I wore Diorissimo and loved it. When I got this sample in one of my swaps (Thanks to Addict2Perfume. I love this and the notes are so well blended. Fresh, sweet (floral not sugar) green, and all so wonderfully blended. This smells like spring to me.
kum1939 – :
I’ve recently ordered quite a few samples of Serge Lutens fragrances. Usually his creations are very much a hit or a miss for me. This however is a hit!
La Vierge De Fer is a soft fruity floral that is so much different from any other similar scent.
The perfume opens up with a cool ambigouos white lilly, then moves on to a metallic cuttig knife and then merges into asmooth ripe pear. The mix is intoxicating to say the least. Very soft, very unique.
The longevity is superb for a soft fruity floral fragrance like this. Over 6h. Even lasts after I’ve been to the shower. All in all perfection,..
печеночник – :
La Vierge De Fer by Serge Lutens is a sweet powdery pear and crisp cold lilies. I love that this smells young and kind yet distant and unapproachable at the same time. There is such a stark contrast between the two top notes, but they still blend so wonderfully together. I love wearing this, I think it is so beautiful and after slowly but surely using up my sample that I savored for so long – I went and got a bottle!
ste4kin – :
The concept of La Vierge De Fer is perfect and total ambivalence. I can detect only three notes – dreamy, yet austere lily, cold metallic note (the smell of the knife) and sweet yet very subtle ripped pear. The notes go along very well and it’s impossible to describe the mood of the fragrance in one word – it’s not cold, yet it’s not floral neither floral fruity, yes it’s sweet, but calm and distant. If I had to choose a personality to represent this fragrance, it would be Elizabeth I – The Virgin Queen. Strong-willed yet fragile, chaste and coquette. The downside is that it doesn’t change or develop much. The lasting power is good, silage – moderate.
hockey – :
This is one of very few fragrances I’ve come across that actually give me a headache. I can only wear it if I apply very, very sparingly. I have the spray bottle, and even one spray to the small of my back (I always wear pants so no point in spraying knees/ankles) is too much. Dabbing it on and immidiately washing my fingers works, sorta.
I DID test before I bought, and really liked the cool, metallic lily. I suspect I was already anosmic from being in the perfume shop, because what I smelled was a soft echo of the overwhelming lily powerhouse I’m getting at home.
I really want to like it and to wear it. It reminds me of cold, clear, early May mornings, the aching weeks before the birch leaves spring open, when you’re poised on the balls of your feet waiting for spring to properly arrive, longing to see something green after six months of winter. It reminds me of the relief of finally seeing black asphalt and smelling petrichor again, after months and months of ice-covered roads. It’s icy and promising at the same time.
arhangel888 – :
Tender..innocent…. a fantastic parfum. The opening is fresh and almost release,releases all of the lily force. After a few minutes it becomes something never heard, something heavenly… fantastic. A beautiful fragrance that stands out a lot, (and I have a good collection of perfumes) but no one remotely resembles … this scent makes me happy and full of love … to me makes this effect ❤ :), the drydown is fantastic, perhaps the incense gives the fragrance an almost mystical aura,but gentle. high level perfume, still surprised and pleased by the fantastic parfum of Lutens.Thank you for this gift… I am at peace!
Sillage: 8./10
Longevity: 8.5/10
Scent: 10./10
Overall: 10./10
Раян – :
“I will come as a thief in the night”…not quite the same thing…
shaman72009 – :
I was visiting a large city & saw this one in the normal spray bottle. So, it was for me a “now or never” impulse buy. Anyway, LVdF is a bit of transformer, & I really like how it progresses.
The opening is a lively but not distinctive (or natural) general fruity freshness, (almost a little bit trashy !) Think apples & pears – as opposed to the more usual citrus. The floral follows later, & it comes in lovely wafts, soft & delicate. I don’t usually get on too well with white florals, they are often either indolic or too “strident” on me, but I get none of that here. I can’t smell anything specifically metallic really, maybe just something that compliments the lily & gives it a little bit of “edge” & sense of coolness. The dry down is hard for me to describe but it’s very subtle (incense), & (I think) there is sandalwood & jasmine (it reminds me of Une Air de Samsara which I had years ago) Anyway, it’s elegant & ethereal & becomes warmer over time..it is lovely..
It lasted well (8 hours +) & I think (like a lot of Lutens) it really needs to be tested patiently on skin, it unfolds slowly. I’m really happy that I got this one, its a beautiful fresh Spring/Summer scent that I can’t wait to wear. Ignoring the ridiculous marketing “blurb” – it just smells really pretty & feminine imo 🙂
Edit: When I bought this I sprayed it on some card, along with 6 other expensive perfumes. 10 days later, this is the only one still going strong on the card. I’m impressed by that – a soft summery perfume, with some backbone – yay !!
Grillewenlano – :
After reading other reviews, I have been trying to be patient with this frag. I am an hour in to La Vierge De Fer and it isn’t going well. Not exactly sure what my nose is picking up. I can’t say that there is any flower standing out. Maybe a shampoo scent?
White flowers are usually my friends, but not this time. My skin isn’t doing La Vierge De Fer any favours.
I understand that it is best to try a frag several times before reviewing but I am pretty certain that I won’t change my mind on this one.
Edit Jan 16.
The spouse, who is usually anosmic, can smell this and likes it. I still won’t be purchasing it.
Another edit. Somehow I have ended up with a second sample of this. My error, as I had a list when I went shopping for samples, but the list was for frags I want to try, not for frags I don’t ever need to sample again. I will wait a day or two, then put all of the sample on and see if I can finally find what others have experienced in this frag.
БАЛУ – :
This is truly a difficult one for me to review because, unlike any other perfume I enjoy, this one starts off rather mediocre and then develops, after several hours, into something amazing.
First things first: Ignore the name, ignore the ridiculous marketing-speak Serge has come out with for this fragrance. You’re at an advantage if you don’t speak French and therefore have no idea what the name means. Don’t let it influence your nose. There is the tiniest bit of metal in here – like a flask that has been kept in the freezer and is now being used as a vase for a similarly chilled lily.
Now, I love lilies. They are one of my favorite flowers, so I’m biased from the start. If you don’t like lilies, this perfume won’t change your mind, but thankfully it avoids the heady white floral overdose. It’s cold and clean – almost too clean. We skirt the edge of the boring laundry scent, which is disappointing. However, after a few hours, a slight fruitiness emerges alongside the lilies. Combined with a touch of incense, THIS is when La Vierge de Fer gets interesting and I can’t quit sniffing at my wrist. I don’t know how Lutens did this, how he hid the best notes underneath a clean and plain floral scent before letting them shine in the far drydown, but it’s great work. Unfortunately, at this price point, it’s too little too late, and I expected better from Serge Lutens. In the head and the heart, this perfume is surprisingly uncomplicated for one of his creations. That is not necessarily a bad thing, you just need to know what you’re in for. If the complex drydown had been matched with a similarly interesting beginning, then this fragrance would be worth your money. But the way it is, I have to relegate it to the status of a curiosity, not a full-bottle buy.
Sillage is disappointingly low.
It’s like half a great perfume.
Coryaccoure – :
Odore di shampoo, solite note di La religieuse,Black opium,quel fiore bianco sintetico che ricorda la banana, come Gardenia di Piguet, solito intruglio chimico ottenuto con poca roba e poca fatica.
Meno di zero.
Non lo considero nemmeno un profumo. Una bomba chimica noiosa.
Blictcinc – :
The reason I dislike this perfume is, It doesn’t have smell of Lilies, but just have cheap fruitness. Otherwise, Un Lys is great.
Kai6505 – :
Agree. The introduction is really weired…who cares? The scent is aaaamaaazing! I love lily of all kinds. But it took me a while to recognize it in the Iron Maiden. I bought the bottle because I loved the idea of the metallic lily…don’t know why I didn’t open the packaging for months. Finally I unwrapped the box and opened the jar. From this moment on I start to apply these drops every day realizing that this frag develops to something really new, never smelled before on my skin. It’s an incredible chilly, alabaster-white almost translucent, mystic, ancient yet futuristic flower scent – a fresh alien blossom and at the same time familiar. Over-worldly! Looove it for all occasions.
And I love lily…. I love THIS lily!
10/10 moderate sillage and longlasting on my skin
zurblimpap – :
I have been a member on this site for some time now and I have never really felt the urge to leave a comment nor review…
Till now!
@Tovah, that was THE best comment/review in the history of Fragrantica.
“And I hate Lilly”
Hahahahahaaaoooo…. wooooo that was a good time 🙂
irishka555 – :
…The Negros had understood that everything which surrounds us is our enemy”, the wizard Picasso said to his paintbrush. Who, if not one of them, decided on life, by death, “Uncleanch the teeth of his sex of the world: fear. Since it is the fruit of our entrails, it must be elevated. For that, not fearing incest, we will embrace it…”
wtf?
This sounds like the ravings of a bigoted, incestuous obsessive turned into a serial killer. What on earth has it got to do with this fragrance?
I’m creeped out. I don’t like poisons of any kind.
And I hate lily.
nlo8383 – :
The metallic note mixed with lilies makes for a creepy scent. Cold, aloof, a bit scary, yet tragically feminine. This is not an everyday scent, but I can see someone wearing this to a funeral, a divorce hearing, or some sort of secret encounter with enemies. Vierge de Fer is the perfect armor for these kinds of situations.
edgar – :
I’m testing La Vierge de Fer right now; I’ve been wearing it for about an hour and a half. This is a lovely lily fragrance, and I’m one of those people that can wear white florals well. That being said, I am very, very glad that I didn’t blind buy this, like I had originally wanted to. Asking $310 for this fragrance is a bit much (bell jar or not). Would I pay $130, if it were put into the spray bottle group? Maybe. I get the lily note and also something that makes me think “cool and light” so that must be the metal note; floral and refreshing. I didn’t get any incense, which is a disappointment, as I think that would have been the deciding factor for me, in making this worth the purchase. It is a unique combination but sadly for me, there is no incense and no spice to back up my lily, and I can find nice lily fragrances for much less than $310. This is soft, feminine, and very, very pretty, and if all of the notes in this fragrance come alive on you, I salute you! I am very happy to have tried it; I am always grateful for the opportunity to try something, even if it doesn’t agree with me or “hit the mark” like I wanted it to. This one is just not “grabbing” me. I’ll happily use up my sample, though. I ordered a sampler of five Serge Lutens perfumes, so I’ll be trying more of them throughout the week. Happy sniffing! 🙂
edit: I’ve been sampling other Lutens fragrances and my skin seems to be “eating” them, for lack of better description. Has anyone else had this experience? La Vierge de Fer had a close scent bubble on me at least, but didn’t disappear. And I’ve received some compliments on it, so now I will reconsider what I wrote earlier and think I will ask for it as a birthday present 😉 ….I still have some samples left to go, so we’ll see. This is soooo pretty, and I hate to totally dismiss it. I just wish that when I’m wearing it, it would give me the incense along with the lily, for the price tag. I only smell lily and “coolness/light” (no other way to describe it, sorry). But it is a big, proud, magnificent white lily! To be continued…
ocsi pohorilyak – :
I have been wearing a generous dose of this beautiful scent for 10 hours and I am happy to say that it is still there as a skin scent and still possessing all its notes. I was not sure what to expect of Lutens last creation with the bizarre presentation notes he published at its launch. I was thinking Joan of Arc, swords and blood everywhere. Au contraire. This is a creamy beautiful scent, the best lily I have ever smelled. Sheldrake has captured just the creamy soft nature of the lily and none of the indoles- they are tamped down by an incensy metallic thread that is silvery but more in a metaphorical luminous way than in a heavy metallic way. This note blends so well with the soft incense that this is truly a heavenly scent. It is deceptvely simple, yet brilliant at the same time, every detail taken care of so that the whole is a glorious creation. I need a full bottle of this. Another Lutens/Sheldrake triumph.
malchik210 – :
This is a luminous one. I’m testing the wax sample, which of course differs from the perfume, but based on my earlier experiences with SL wax samples versus the perfumes, here goes nothing:
Wearing La Vierge de Fer is like carrying a flower in your hands. It’s a beautiful, bright scent, tempered by a light musk. It’s a Lutens, all right, but one of the more polite ones. It won’t whack you over the head with dark imagery but flicker and flit around you like a faery. There, I just compared a Lutens perfume to a mythical creature. How embarrassing. But this is not necessarily a faery of the tinkerbell-variety, this faery is much less attuned to humans and not necessarily altogether benign. I guess that’s the slight metallic, silvery edge of the perfume coming through. Yes, it’s a beautiful scent, but chilly; not like winter is chilly but like a misty summer morning is.
A full bottle for me? I am not sure. Were I gifted one I would use the scent and be happy but I feel there are other scents by uncle Serge that speak more loudly to me. La Vierge de Fer laughs but does not caress.
Edited: I do want a FB. The laughter is irresistible.
tttt.vita – :
It’s a very strong vivid lily scent, so different from tender, delicate and sweet Un Lys. Actually, when I first tried it – it was so overwhelming and powerful, that I almost lost my head and fainted :). But, unfortunately, it seems to me too single-eyed, lacking depth and vibrancy. It’s not a beautiful drama about Iron Lady, where lily plays the lead. It’s simply lily-the-flower alone: no covers, no hints, no mystery, no intrigue – just solo lily by itself.
Simply and boring.