L'eau Serge Lutens Eau de Parfum

Two decades after introducing the world to his baroque elixirs, Serge Lutens hasn't lost the will - or the capacity - to shock. And what a shock L'Eau Serge Lutens will be to his fans. Touted as an "anti-perfume" for the days when you want to take a break from scent, this new eau, apparently the first of a series, breaks with Lutens' oriental inspiration. "The real key is what I decided not to put in this scent", he explains. So: no spices, no heady flowers, no fruity woods or animal notes. Just the smell of a "crisp, freshly-laundered white shirt", of "the most expensive soap in the world".

And indeed, the first, unmistakably aldehydic whiff of L'Eau Serge Lutens does conjure olfactory images of a hot iron on linen or an ivory-white soap bar. A fresh, citrusy green accord of magnolia and lily-of-the-valley with hints of transparent rose, barely tinged with the ambery-woody clary sage, hides a whiff of ozonic notes. Carried by a wave of white musk, the scent, despite its airiness, is remarkably long-lasting.

So if you're going to do clean, you might as well do it Serge's way. Simple, fresh, irrepressibly modern.

Notes: aldehydes, citrus, magnolia, white mint, clary sage, ozonic notes, musk