Creed Green Irish Tweed vs Millésime Impérial: Which Should You Buy?

By Redolia Editors · Published October 1, 2026

Creed Green Irish Tweed (1985) and Creed Millésime Impérial (1995) are both $490 for 100 ml, and they solve different problems. Green Irish Tweed is a dry green fougère built on lemon verbena, iris and violet leaf that wears 8 to 10 hours. Millésime Impérial is sea salt and Sicilian lemon, lighter and shorter. Buy on season and wear time, not on prestige.

What Creed Green Irish Tweed smells like

Lemon verbena and iris open it, and the pairing is the whole signature: the verbena is bright and herbaceous rather than sharp, the iris adds powder and a cool green earthiness underneath. Violet leaf runs through the heart — a crushed-stem green rather than a floral one. Ambergris and sandalwood finish it, which is where the price shows, because the drydown is mineral and soft instead of soapy.

Creed credits Olivier Creed as the perfumer. The fragrance community widely credits Pierre Bourdon with the composition, and the reason that matters is Davidoff Cool Water, which arrived in 1988 and is attributed to Bourdon as well. If Cool Water has ever smelled familiar to you, this is the fragrance it is familiar from.

What Creed Millésime Impérial smells like

Sea salt and bergamot, immediately. The salt is the thing people remember — a mineral, briny lift that reads as sea spray and wet stone rather than as an aquatic synthetic. Sicilian lemon, iris and mandarin make the heart, so the citrus keeps going rather than burning off, and sea notes, musk and sandalwood close it.

It is the more unusual of the two. Salt was not a mainstream perfumery note in 1995, and most of what the market now calls a salty fragrance came afterwards. The trade-off is performance: wearers commonly report around four hours, and Millésime Impérial has a long-standing reputation for differing between batches, which is worth knowing before you spend $490.

Green Irish Tweed vs Millésime Impérial: the comparison

The wear-time line is the one that decides most purchases. Eight to ten hours against four, at the same price, is not a small difference — and it is the single most consistent thing wearers say when they compare these two.

How they compare to the fragrances you already know

Against Davidoff Cool Water, Green Irish Tweed is the drier, more mineral original. Cool Water is sweeter and more aquatic, Green Irish Tweed greener and more powdery through the iris. They are recognisably the same family, and whether that is worth the price gap is the honest question with this bottle.

Against Creed Aventus, both of these are quieter. Aventus is smoky pineapple and birch with a loud first hour; Green Irish Tweed never announces itself that way, and Millésime Impérial projects less than either. If you bought Aventus for the compliments, be aware you are buying a different kind of fragrance here.

And against each other in our own range: Creed Virgin Island Water at $490 is the third summer option — coconut, lime and white rum over sugarcane, the fun one — while Creed Wild Vetiver at $510 is the 2026 release for anyone who wants a Creed nobody will recognise. We wrote that one up in what Creed Wild Vetiver smells like.

So which should you buy?

Buy Green Irish Tweed if you want one Creed that works from March to October, survives a working day, and will never be the wrong choice in a meeting. It is the safer purchase of the two by a distance, and the longevity is the reason.

Buy Millésime Impérial if you specifically want the salt, and if you are the kind of person who carries a travel atomiser. In July it is the better fragrance of the two. In November it is not.

Buy neither if you already own something built on the Cool Water accord and liked it well enough — Green Irish Tweed will feel like a more expensive version of a smell you have, and that is a real reason some people regret it. The rest of the house is on our Creed collection.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Green Irish Tweed and Millésime Impérial?

Green Irish Tweed is green and dry; Millésime Impérial is salty and fruity. Green Irish Tweed opens on lemon verbena and iris over violet leaf, finishing on ambergris and sandalwood. Millésime Impérial opens on sea salt and bergamot over Sicilian lemon, iris and mandarin, closing on sea notes, musk and sandalwood. Both are Creed, both $490 for 100 ml, launched ten years apart.

Green Irish Tweed vs Millésime Impérial: which lasts longer?

Green Irish Tweed, and it is not close. Wearers on Basenotes and Fragrantica commonly report 8 to 10 hours from Green Irish Tweed against roughly 4 from Millésime Impérial, and Millésime Impérial has a long-standing reputation for varying between batches. If wear time is your deciding factor, this is the whole answer.

Is Creed Green Irish Tweed worth it?

At $490 for 100 ml it is one of the most-copied fragrances ever made, which is both the argument for it and against it. The case for: it is the original, it lasts a working day, and it is wearable in an office in a way few $490 bottles are. The case against: a lot of people already know the accord from cheaper fragrances built on the same idea.

What does Green Irish Tweed smell similar to?

Davidoff Cool Water, which arrived three years later in 1988. The fragrance community widely credits Pierre Bourdon with composing both, and the family resemblance - that green, violet-leaf, dihydromyrcenol freshness - is obvious on skin. Green Irish Tweed is the drier, more mineral and more expensive reading of the same idea.

Is Millésime Impérial unisex?

Yes, and Creed sells it that way. Green Irish Tweed is listed as a men's fragrance; Millésime Impérial is not, and the salt-and-citrus structure with no fougère backbone is why. In our shop it is bought roughly evenly, and it is the one of the two we hand to women more often.

Which Creed is best for summer?

Millésime Impérial, if you accept that you will reapply. The sea salt and Sicilian lemon are built for heat, and the fragrance does not get heavy the way an ambery Creed does. Creed Virgin Island Water is the other summer option at the same $490 - coconut, lime and white rum rather than salt - and it is the more obviously fun of the two.

Does Green Irish Tweed smell dated?

It smells like 1985, which is the point. The green-fougère structure it helped define has been copied so widely that it can read as familiar rather than distinctive, and some people hear that as dated. Worn blind it still reads clean, expensive and adult. If you want a Creed nobody will recognise, Creed Wild Vetiver from 2026 is the newer option.

Both are in stock at $490 for 100 ml, with free standard shipping on every US order. Two fragrances this different are worth smelling side by side before choosing, and both are open on the counter at our Somerville, New Jersey boutique along with the rest of the Creed collection. Questions: info@redolia.com.

Updated October 2026.