Hellenist Les Bras de Morphée: The Dream-Maker’s Iris
© Sigurd Magnor Killerud
Hellenist has always framed Greece not simply as a place, but as a state of mind — a lens through which light, memory, and mythology merge. Within this quiet, luminous universe comes Les Bras de Morphée, the brand’s new unisex fragrance crafted by perfumer Suzy Le Helley.
Released in 2024, the scent falls under the oriental vanilla family, yet it refuses the familiar codes of heaviness or excess. Instead, it unfolds as a soft, suspended embrace: a cloud-like aura that hovers somewhere between comfort, reverie, and that intimate moment just before sleep.
© Sigurd Magnor Killerud
A mythology of softness
The name calls directly on Morpheus, son of Sleep and Night, the deity who shapes dreams. Le Helley interprets this myth not through darkness, but through tactility — as if the fragrance itself were the quiet gesture of being held.
At its opening, violet leaf, heliotrope, and a gentle peach accord create a gauzy freshness, a cool breath that hints at green shadows and soft petals. Quickly, the heart moves into full dream-state: orris and violet, tender yet precise, form a powdery core that feels both nostalgic and strangely modern, while a subtle hazelnut note adds warmth and a nutty, skin-like texture.
The dry-down is where the embrace tightens. Cashmeran, tonka bean, and vanilla melt together into something cocooning, intimate, almost tactile. The effect is not overtly sweet — rather, it feels like the weight of a blanket settling over the body, a gentle hush.
The perfumer’s vision
© Sigurd Magnor Killerud
Le Helley describes the brief as “a hug,” something soft, comforting, and instinctively protective. To build it, she pushed the facets of iris in multiple directions:
the powdery and velvety, amplified with violet and almondy tonka,
the green and crisp, brightened by violet leaf and hazel wood,
the woody and rooty, deepened by cashmeran and touches of vetiver.
This iris is idealized, she explains — not botanical, but dreamt. A fantasy of iris, as Morpheus himself might conjure it.
A brand shaped by heritage
Hellenist, true to its name, draws on the echoes of Greek culture — not through literal olfactory references, but through a sense of timelessness. Its fragrances feel suspended between eras, threaded with mythology yet decidedly contemporary. Les Bras de Morphée fits squarely into this ethos: a fragrance about belonging, intimacy, and that invisible place where emotion and atmosphere meet.
Worn on the skin, Les Bras de Morphée has a slow, enveloping evolution. The powdery iris never disappears; instead, it becomes softer, more textural, almost like second skin. The vanilla-tonka pairing adds warmth without tipping into gourmand territory, while cashmeran creates a whispered woodiness — diffuse, comforting, addictive.
It’s a fragrance for those who love subtlety, for those who find beauty in blurred edges rather than sharp contrasts. A scent that doesn’t shout but lingers, like the memory of a dream you can’t fully recount yet can’t quite shake.
© Sigurd Magnor Killerud
Dream Diary Ritual
Inspired by Hellenist Les Bras de Morphée: where iris drifts into dream
Spritz Les Bras de Morphée on your wrist and inhale slowly. Let the iris soften your mind.
Open a blank page and write just one fragment of a dream: a color, a phrase, an image whose origin you don’t know.Let it unfold in a few lines, without logic or ending: follow the feeling—the powdery iris, the caress of vanilla, the faint shadow of cashmeran.
Close the page when the scene fades.
Repeat each night.
This is how your dream diary begins.
© Sigurd Magnor Killerud
Products kindly provided.