L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau de Toilette Fraiche follows its predecessor, which was created in 1994. While it remains within the same limpidity, this essence seems nonetheless to have found new energy in the bloodlike freshness of grapefruit paired with cardamom.
It is certain that if the house of Issey Miyaké was launched under the best auspices, the beauty of L’Eau d’Issey pour Femme and then of its male counterpart played a large part in that. Born in 1994, L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme brings with its powerful, aquatic notes a wave of novelty that swept over men's fragrances. Having become a cult classic, Jacques Cavallier's composition was reworked in 2016 by Christophe Raynaud to offer, with Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau Fraîche, brilliant modern touches.
L’Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau fraiche, or the new version of the great classic by Christophe Raynaud
How does one create a fragrance that is even fresher than the one composed by Jacques Cavallier under the name Eau d’Issey pour Homme? Simply by modernizing its accords! Thus Christophe Raynaud dared to touch the mythical fragrance from the 90s that he admires so much, in order to give it a new breath of freshness.
Indeed, without one even realizing it, twenty years separate Jacques Cavallier's Eau d’Issey pour Homme from Christophe Raynaud's Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau Fraiche! And despite its timeless aquatic elegance, L’Eau d’Issey can allow itself a rejuvenating spa treatment under the guidance of one of the greatest creators of successful fragrances.
Because with this lift of Eau d’Issey pour Homme into an even more intense freshness, Christophe Raynaud is far from a novice at this! He particularly enjoys reworking great classics to offer an enlightened, modern vision of a fragrance's founding elements. But above all, the perfumer takes particular pleasure in composing the most precise balances between cold accords and burning scents. This is what he did for this Eau d’Issey Eau Fraiche, but also for one of his biggest commercial successes, the now-cult One Million by Paco Rabanne.
A new fougère accord for an Eau d’Issey Eau Fraîche of absolute modernity
Let us be clear, the fragrance composed by Jacques Cavallier in 1994 was a pure fougère fragrance, well before being an aquatic one! Indeed, Eau d’Issey pour Homme possessed all the components described by Christophe Raynaud as belonging to a fougère fragrance true to classic retro tradition: bergamot, geranium, oakmoss and coumarin. This is surprising when one considers that this 1994 fragrance was above all meant to be seen as an unprecedented and highly modern fragrance, which it indeed is, in its striking balance between intense warmth and icy coolness.
For Eau d’Issey pour Homme Eau Fraîche, Christophe Raynaud worked on the composition to make it even brighter and more dynamic, while adding the missing ingredient to the fougère cocktail of twenty years earlier: lavender, of course! In the top notes, the citrus freshness remains intense, but it is truly at the heart of this 2016 Eau Fraîche that we find the most striking novelties, between lavender notes and clary sage notes that propel the original calone to absolute heights. Aldehydes make their appearance to give this iodized-aromatic pairing additional power. The woody depths, between the exotic warmth of benzoin and the fiery nervousness of vetiver, are heightened to offer even more contrast.