Hi there Posse, You are definitely in the dog days of summer up in the Northern Hemisphere. Here’s another summer leaning beauty that you may have missed. I remember trying it when it was first released and LOVING it but funds were super tight at the time and I knew it would become available fairly soon on the discounters. Which it has. So I grabbed myself a 50ml and opened it! Many of you will know that I often buy but rarely open. Well, I could not control my need, even in the dead of winter, to smell of Le Sel d’Issey.
From the Issey Miyake site: Thirty years after the launch of the iconic L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme, Issey Miyake once again draws inspiration from an essential element of nature: salt. Discover Le Sel d’Issey, a tribute to the impetus and desire to live intensely.
Le Sel d’Issey by Issey Miyake 2024
Issey Miyake gives these featured accords:
Salt, natural seaweed, oakmoss, ginger, cedar, vetiver
Firstly, I need to say how reminiscent of L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme is. No, they’re not the same but that fresh water vibe is definitely in the idea. What used to be references to the taste of salt are now the whole show, with only just more than whispers of other notes giving breadth.
The Le Sel d’Issey salt is so real it gives me clacky dry mouth. It’s hard to explain it without you trying it. Historic, and completely new. The ginger is a very nice, bracing addition that adds a little sweetness to all the other ingredients. It’s like that candied ginger my Mum and Dad used to love so much. Biting sharp but sugared.
The heart and dry down are the green oiliness of vetiver and I get pencil shaving references too. There’s so much more than the sum of the parts going on here though. All the way to disappear there is the smell of the taste of salt. Iodised Salt.
Le Sel d’Issey is almost a trick play fragrance. More a smell than fine fragrance BUT also, fine fragrance. Genius. An overdose of salt.
Anyone can wear it. Longevity is excellent, sillage only big for the first 30ish minutes. Then it becomes an interesting crust of salt on your own human scent.
The price at the discounters is so cheap too. FragranceNet has 100ml for under US$65. What a sensational gift price. Gift for you or someone you love. Surrender To Chance has samples if you’d like to try it.
Recently we talked here on Perfume Posse about L’Eau d’Issey Pour Homme Solar Lavender
My question is, do you want to smell like a glamorous salt lick?
Portia xx
Lolol! No. No, I do not! But you do make it sound fabulous!!!
HA! Love you Musette.
Portia xx
Glamorous salt like is not really for me, although I do enjoy it on other people! I love the way you talked us through the progression of notes.
Thanks March, this was a fun one to write. Almost stream of consciousness. Suddenly there was a completed post.
Portia xx
Portia, that’s PERSACKLY how I read it, too. Like you were sitting there, ‘feeling’ the progression of the notes
Yeah, pretty much. It all just wrote itself.
My remaining salty perfume is VCA Midnight in Paris, as I’d given away the MH Fleurs de Sel to a perfume friend who adored it.
Hey there AnnieA,
I sold all my VCA Midnight in Paris except one unopened bottle, still BNIB. I pull it out and look at it wishfully every now and then. It gets put back and I forget about it till next time.
Portia xx
I confess I bought the VCA for the stunning bottle! Finally I started missing salty-goodness perfumes and started wearing it, on cool, autumn days.
HA! What a beautiful bottle it is. I miss houses making the flacon as beautiful as the scent.
I do! And I have been looking for a replacement for Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel for a while..
AH! Tom, this is Fleurs de Sel with a high voltage electrical current running through. I think you’ll be pleased.
Portia xx
LOL. I like the image that comes to mind with “glamorous salt lick” so I wouldn’t mind smelling like that at all. The problem for me is the seaweed. I tend to think of the Atlantic Ocean and how it washes seaweed onto the shore which then rots. I have disliked that smell since I was a kid. BUT if the seaweed is more like it smells in the Pacific Ocean…I would like to sample Le Sel d’Issey!
Hey Maya,
When we were kids Grandma used to live on the salt lakes north of Sydney. They had seaweed beds in them. After a storm they’s all pile up and rot. In high summer the smell was absolutely disgusting. They were a perfect nursery for the smaller fish and an excellent hiding spot for so much other sea life. Sadly, in the quest for better smelling summers they tore most of the weed out. Now they are barren. Sad.
Glamorous salt lick seems to have some traction. YAY!
Portia xx
You obviously know the fine nuances of rotting seaweed too. It is sad that it’s that it was intentionally destroyed leaving your salt lakes barren.
Now my curiosity about Le Sel d’Issey does have an element of hopefulness to it!
Oh yes, I think you’ll find it a much kinder breeze.
I did check it out further and found out that the EDT (2024) that you are writing about is the one to get. In 2025 and 2026, Issey Miyake made an EDP and a Parfum, both of which don’t compare favorably with the EDT. Fortunately STC samples are the EDT! And bottles are still available at discounters!
YAY on all counts Maya.
So interesting that the original is best.
This sounds interesting — in the abstract. I think I tried something called Sel de Vetiver be the Different Company. Not my thing. Vetiver doesn’t sit well. Decades ago, I looked after the cows at summer camp and they had a salt lick. I can’t unsee them having a go with their big tongues.
Hey Cinnamon,
The horses used to crunch the salt lick. Sounds like a pistol shot when it cracked.
Vetiver is tricky. People tend to love or loathe it. I’m a fan. Also, I really like TDC Sel de Vetiver. I’ve had a long standing love affair with both notes.
Portia xx
Portia,
I’ll pass on smelling like a glamorous salt lick! Haha It’s amazing how perfumers are always coming up with new, sometimes weird, combinations of notes in their scents. I have just one scent with salt in it, and it’s a favorite: Van Cleef & Arpels Bois d’Iris. And like Sel it has vetiver too. I might like Sel if I sniffed it!
OOOHHHH I had no idea that Bois d’Iris had a salty facet. Colour me intrigued DinaC. I like the VC&A premium fragrances. they do some solid work, without it being too left of center.
HA! I reckon there are a thousand worse ways to smell than a glamorous salt lick.
Portia x