Serge Lutens’ first “anti-perfume”, 2010’s L’Eau Serge Lutens, was mildly controversial in the perfumed blogosphere. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t much mind either; as I said then, Mr. Lutens can do whatever he needs to do to keep himself interested — and/or to keep his brand afloat and attract new customers in new markets. Now we have the second in the L’Eau series, L’Eau Froide.

L’Eau Serge Lutens referenced clean shirts and cleanliness in general; L’Eau Froide, of course, is about cold water, and the brand’s website mentions “some fresh air in the rusty old water pipes”. That’s marginally more appealing to me than the clean shirts, but only marginally. As it turns out, I like L’Eau Froide much better than L’Eau Serge Lutens, but if you want the ending now — saves time, right? — I’ll add that while I enjoyed wearing it, it’s not going on my buy list.

L’Eau Froide opens on very cold lemony citrus…

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