I'm curious about beaded embroidery

I've never done any beaded embroidery and I've never been any good at regular needle work. But I'm currently trying to get into beadwork. I assumed I'd do some off loom work but it's been 20 years so I'm beyond rusty.

Does anyone have a recommendation for whether it would be better to start afresh with bead embroidery or teach myself off loom stitches again?

Also can anyone explain to me what Iris means when it comes to a bead? The Matsuno dynamite line has a lot of iris beads and I'm not sure what that means.