Can a fragrance really smell of water? Issey Miyake would like us to think so: his iconic L’Eau d’Issey was created to conjure up the purity and clarity of water. (It was one of the first ‘juices’, or perfumes, to be almost as clear as fresh water in colour, too.) Mostly, ‘water’ in fragrance ingredient terms has come to mean an oceanic, salty/seawater vibe – which is actually recreated through the use of a complicated blend of synthetics. The idea is that ‘watery’ fragrances should actually should smell ‘breezy’, ‘outdoorsy’, like the mist that’s in the air when we take a walk on a beach with the surf crashing against the sand. (Because of course if you simply filled a bottle with water, you’d end up with something with no more of a scent than Perrier or Evian.)
Smell water (or rather ‘ozonic’ notes) in:
Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey
