Le Sel d'Issey
Salt is a difficult thing to put in a bottle, and Issey Miyake Le Sel d'Issey Eau de Parfum gets at it sideways, through seaweed rather than through anything sugary or soapy. Seaweed is the material everything else serves. It smells of iodine and wet rock, green and mineral with a cold salinity behind it, and it is the reason this does not resemble the rest of the house's output. Oakmoss meets it from the other direction, inky and bitter, the smell of bark and damp ground, and between the two the composition sits somewhere between a shoreline and a wood.
Frankincense lifts it. That is the resin with the cool, church air quality, slightly peppery and lemony when it is fresh, and it gives the middle height. Amber warms the floor with a soft resinous glow, and cedarwood runs through the base dry and upright, holding the shape so the salt never turns limp. Five materials, used with intent. There is no fruit, no flower and no sweetness to speak of, which makes it unusually serious for a designer release and a genuine alternative to the sweet men's fragrances that dominate the shelves. Quentin Bisch composed it in 2025. As an eau de parfum it has real presence for the first hour and then settles close, lasting through a day and into an evening. It reads as unisex, works in any season, and is particularly good in warm weather where the mineral quality comes forward.
The house is Japanese, with the design studio dating from 1970, the company from 1971 and the first store from 1974, run today from Shibuya in Tokyo. Clothing came first and the reputation rests on pleating and on unorthodox garment construction, with fragrance beginning in March 1992.
Please note: images are a guide only. Packaging and bottle design may occasionally differ from those shown due to manufacturer updates or promotions.
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