There are some scents that defy the boundaries of his or hers. Issey Miyake’s latest launch, Le Sel d’Issey Eau de Parfum, is one of them a fragrance so addictive that women are already claiming it as their own.
The story begins last year with the release of Le Sel d’Issey Eau de Toilette, a salt-kissed composition that quickly built a cult female following, despite being designed as a masculine scent. Now, perfumer Quentin Bisch turns up the volume with the new Eau de Parfum: a fragrance that captures the elemental power of sea and earth, fresh yet smouldering, mineral yet enveloping.
At its heart, Le Sel d’Issey EDP is an olfactory duel between salt and warmth. Laminaria seaweed and oak moss deliver a bracing, marine opening, like a wave crashing on the shore. Then the salt accord softens, wrapped in incense, dry amber, and burning woods notes that smoulder on the skin with irresistible sensuality. “A fragrance made up of sensual warm woods and a tremendous salty freshness that never seems to fade,” is how Bisch himself describes it.
It’s this contrast of freshness and fire that makes Le Sel d’Issey so magnetic across genders. On men, it’s quietly commanding. On women, it becomes something altogether more intriguing: a scent that clings to skin like memory, blurring the line between softness and strength.
The bottle, designed by long-time Miyake collaborator Tokujin Yoshioka, mirrors the fragrance’s intensity with its grey lacquer gradient, metallic cap, and minimalist purity. Inside, sustainability meets luxury — 94% natural-origin ingredients, vegan certification, and refillable bottles crafted from recycled glass.
The campaign, by director Marcus Tomlinson with music from French composer Rone, visualises sound through vibrating grains of amber salt a hypnotic echo of the fragrance itself: elemental, charged, impossible to ignore.
So while the bottle may sit on his shelf, don’t be surprised if it ends up on yours. Le Sel d’Issey Eau de Parfum is the fragrance made to be borrowed, shared and ultimately, stolen.
