L'Eau Majeure d'Issey Eau de Toilette 100ml

If the original L'Eau d'Issey is water, Issey Miyake L'Eau Majeure d'Issey Eau de Toilette 100ml is the open sea version of the same idea, cooler, more mineral and firmly aimed at men. The opening is the sharpest part. Grapefruit and bergamot hit together with their bitterness intact, and mint cuts straight through them, cold and clean rather than sweet, the way a stick of gum is cold. It is bracing for the first ten minutes and then it eases.

Tea is the middle, and it is a single, well judged move. Dry, slightly tannic, a little dusty, it keeps the citrus honest and gives the scent its character, which is restraint rather than flourish. From there it dries down into the part that does the work: cashmeran for a soft musky warmth, amberwood for that modern mineral quality that makes a fragrance feel smooth and faintly metallic, and cedarwood for a dry frame underneath.

It is a toilette and wears like one, bright and present early, then low and skin close for several hours. Longevity is decent rather than remarkable, which is normal for a composition built this cleanly. Aurélien Guichard and Fabrice Pellegrin composed it in 2017.

Heat suits it. This is a summer and daytime bottle, good for work, for travel and for anyone who wants to smell washed rather than perfumed, and the 100ml size reflects the fact that scents like this get used generously.

Behind it is a Japanese design company better known for clothes. Miyake Design Studio was founded in 1970 and ISSEY MIYAKE INC. incorporated the next year, the first shop opened in Tokyo in 1974, and the business runs from Shibuya. It entered perfumery in March 1992, having built its name on pleating and on experimental construction.