I remember when Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey was released in 1993; looking back, I can understand how it was a breath of fresh air (and clean water and a few lotus petals) after the Poison-heavy years of the late 1980s. It didn’t suit my own tastes — I was busy trying Jean Paul Gaultier’s new fragrance, now known as Classique, at the other end of the fragrance counter — but I respected Issey Miyake for carving out a new trend in fragrance.

On a recent afternoon of perfume-sampling in midtown Manhattan, I stopped to try the recently launched Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey Florale at Sephora. L’Eau d’Issey Florale was developed by perfumer Alberto Morillas; its notes include rose, lily, mandarin, and white woods. The iconic, minimalist L’Eau d’Issey bottle is frosted pink for this version, and the L’Eau d’Issey Florale advertisement, which has caught my eye in a few magazines, features a lovely still-life photograph in the style of the late Irving Penn. All well and good. But by the time I was riding the bus home, I was writing an e-mail to Robin, telling her that I wanted to review L’Eau d’Issey Florale because it made me feel “simultaneously angry and bored…”

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