Paradise City — New Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey EDT Pour L’Été Summer 2016 Brings In The Tropical Heat

We often remember specific summers by the anthems that defined them, the tunes that topped the charts and dominated the radio waves, that served as the soundtrack to our road trips, beach dips, and sweaty flings. But what if we could remember the summer of a specific year through scent? What if there was a distinctive fragrance for each summer of our lives? Well, that’s certainly a possibility with Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey Eau de Toilette pour l’Été, a fragrance that has been reinvented every year since 1995.  Not only do the aromatic compositions vary from one summer to the next, but so do the illustrations stamped on each bottle and on the accompanying box.  This year, the Issey Miyake EDT Pour L’Été ($78 at Sephora.com) takes on an exuberant, buoyant, bright, playful personality — a theme that’s evident in the bottle’s artwork, designed by British artist Michelle McKinney as an homage to the glowing aureole of the rising sun.

This year’s summer scent boasts a distinctly tropical feel that will likely conjure up images of island locales and lush palm trees. The scent, developed with perfumer Alberto Morillas, greets you with watery lychee and zesty but slightly bitter grapefruit, then quickly ushers you into a fruity aromatic cocktail of dragon fruit, guava, and passion fruit, concluding the journey with base notes of vanilla and woods.

Probably the most dominant notes in the aromatic composition are the guava and the grapefruit, which feel flamboyant and festive, like the olfactory equivalent of neon geometric patterns and bright floral prints. I personally love how the citrus notes awaken the senses and create a sense of excitement that builds up as the fruity guava, dragon fruit, and passion fruit notes take center stage, the unraveling of aromatic layer, mimicking the arc of the sun, emerging from the horizon and rising from the East. If you’re not familiar with the smell of dragon fruit (pitaya), I’d liken it to that of a kiwi or a ripe pear: slightly sweet, mild, and refreshingly watery. When combined with the stronger guava and passion fruit notes, the resulting aroma is fruity but also slightly floral with that aqueous quality of the pitaya note adding a carefree feel. The creamier vanilla notes that round out the scent, meanwhile, give the fragrance its lingering power and, moreover, mimic the rhythm of a summer day in that they seem to usher in dusk and set the stage for a steamy night.

This is probably my favorite Issey Miyake summer fragrance to date since it just perfectly captures the sexiness of balmy summer days and nights, the zest for life that accompanies the season of pool parties and outdoor music festivals, the intensity of the sun during each period of the day. It’s the type of scent that just makes you happy. I find that, when I apply this scent, I crave to smell my wrists because I find the aroma so uplifting, so desirable. And hey, if it’s irresistible to your own senses, imagine how magnetic it will be for those around you!