Lumière d'Issey Issey Miyake 2026

I'm a huge fan of Issey Miyake, both in fashion as in perfume. I think most of the times they deliver very interesting fragrances, sometimes almost niche scents, with an outstanding quality of ingredients. It's probably my favourite designer brand.

When I saw they recently released a new perfume I was instantly intrigued and started researching it. In the photos I saw the bottle design looked a bit too old-fashioned for my taste with the triangle faces on the glass even though know it references the purses. Then one day I came across it in a local perfume store. The bottle design looks much, much better in person, the photos make it look more "vintage" (pejorative). Still, I think such a direct and obvious reference to the brand's purses is a bit too obvious and/or vulgar when you compare it to the gorgeous designs of L'Eau d'Issey, A Drop d'Issey, Le Sel d'Issey etc. which in my opinion are far, far more refined, tasteful, sculptorical and avant-garde.

Leaving the bottle behind, when it comes to the scent I was expecting something similar to what I was ranting about before. Something that feels new, minimalist, avant-garde... And yet what I found was another citrus/white floral fragrance with an uncanny similarity to Prada Paradoxe.

It's not terrible, but it was utterly disappointing to see the brand fall so hard for trends and release something so boring and unnecessary.

Overall I didn't like it at all, I'm bored to the moon and back with the perfume ADN, but I got to admit that ingredients-wise the perfume does feel high quality. It's how repeated that ADN is that disgusts me, but if you enjoy such scents and/or like the bottle, go for it!

Another disappointingly generic scent with the overused accords of modern designer perfumery. It smells exactly like stepping into a duty-free or a crowded fragrance hall—loud, synthetic, and utterly indistinguishable. It will no doubt attract the masses, as that is precisely what it was engineered to do. For anyone with a more discerning nose and familiarity with perfumes, however, it offers nothing but monotony—just another forgettable, soulless composition in an already oversaturated market.

bottle is a pillow shaped travesty but that can be forgiven if the scent is awesome. i dealt with the awkward but cool looking A Drop d'Issey Eau de Parfum so this could be fine. i usually love the minimalist style of issey miyake's bottles but this is a sharp departure from it so that's interesting to see.

this smells meh. boring sweet fruity gummy orange blossom. okay lasting power and projection, slightly fresh. gets quite synthetic as it dries down unfortunately. planned to pass my decant over to my friend who favours these sorts of scents and she took it gladly. not my thing but hey it smells alright. not amazing for me but if you like those sorts of scents check this out.

however, the mediocrity and lack of uniqueness from this perfume bothers me.

i could get this from Paradoxe Eau de Parfum, i could get this from Love Don't Be Shy Perfume, i could get this from one of parfums de marly's various orange blossom scents that make up most of their female line. not even considering the various dupes as Floral Marshmallow smells identical to kilian's.

i expected something a bit more unique from issey miyake. when do we get new flowers? wisteria! lilies! blue lotus! cyclamen! queen of the night! sweet pea! elderflower! frangipani!

there are so many interesting and wonderful flowers in perfumery that could be used instead of orange blossom (2nd most common flower note according to parfumo's database). i am so tired of this flower in everything. over 13000 perfumes have it.

issey miyake and ane ayo did amazing work with A Drop d'Issey Eau de Parfum and its flankers. amazing breath of fresh air in a gourmand saturated market and great for the price. still my hoarded signature to this day. L'Eau d'Issey Eau de Toilette is unique and beautiful especially considering when it released. i have no experience with issey miyake's masculine fragrances (e.g. L'Eau d'Issey pour Homme Eau de Toilette and Le Sel d'Issey Eau de Toilette) but i have heard they are very awesome.

a shame then, that this has been so disappointing.

I appreciate the development in culinary arts that uses raw materials in a holistic way, "from nose to tail," before they reach the plate.

I feel a similar appreciation for this creation by Pellegrin and Salamagne here.
Beautifully balanced, they let the orange blossom in the top notes of the current Issey shine fresh, light, and sparkling as Nerolidol distillate, while the same blossom is placed as an absolute in the heart. And this is where this typical Fleur d'Orange sweetness unfolds...intense, honey-like but not too heavy, allowing it to dance at eye level with the freshness in the warm rays of light. A very fine connection between head and heart!
The flowers are caught by delicate omnipresent (but absolutely not nose-blocking) white musk, which also acts as a heart note, harmoniously powdering everything from almost the beginning to the end of the over 10-hour longevity and allowing them to blend elegantly.

A light feel-good fragrance emerges that truly does justice to the name of light. The scent radiates a caressing warm brightness that makes me very happy when wearing it!!! The sillage is decent but also well dosable!
It works on cool as well as warmer days - just like a sunny walk in winter can be as delightful as enjoying an ice cream kissed by the rays in early summer. What autumn and high summer will bring, I will only find out later :)

The basic structure of Lumière d'Issey is not entirely new.
In the first testing moments, the scent briefly reminded me of "Alien Goddess (Eau de Parfum) | Mugler." However, Lumière does not develop (thankfully) like so many sweet white floral scents typically do with vanilla, but here the twist comes with the warmer woody undertone that becomes more potent over time. The pistachio wood brings - even more than the sandalwood - calm, almost masculine tones that bid farewell to daylight in a warm embrace.
And through this tidy base, I really see it as a standalone fragrance composition. It may be that white flowers have been used (and still are) in combination with sweetness in an inflationary manner. The triad of neroli, orange blossom, and mandarin often goes well together. They thus have their place and broad following in the fragrance world.
I can also understand the initial associations with "Paradoxe (Eau de Parfum) | Prada." However, the late development is something completely different in this comparison (and I think it actually starts much earlier...here we have neither jasmine nor vanilla, and neroli is not the same as bergamot...and each of these has its own justification for bringing happiness).

This fragrance deserves to be evaluated independently. If someone is looking for niche, that's nice, but this scent has the potential to also captivate a wider audience. It is roundly composed and brings interesting components into a well-harmonizing connection!

I want to encourage you with this review to test it! If I had seen the evaluation here before the first spray reached me, I would have probably left it aside. Yet it delights me very much today!

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A little picture to conclude:
Early in the morning, it is still very quiet in the house. My bare feet feel the cool kitchen tiles beneath them.
The kettle whistles, and I brew my first cup of tea. Gently, the fine aroma of the Assam-orange blossom blend rises with the hot steam. The steam swirls in the first rays of sunlight of the day, sparkling through the kitchen window. The light shines on a bowl of mandarins next to the cool jug full of wonderfully white freesias on the counter.
I enjoy the awakening life in the kitchen: many hours of happy encounters and watch as the light moves through this picture before me. It illuminates the scene from all sides until it has turned around itself once.
A delicately swirling speck of dust sparkles in its dance in the beam of light, becoming tired and quieter in its movements and finally coming to rest. It settles on the warm wooden countertop, which shimmers golden in the evening light, where so much life has already taken place and will still take place.

When I smelled the fragrance in the store, I thought it had something special, but the reviews blew me away. It deserves a top rating, and I was surprised that perfumes from 2026 performed so poorly. This one, however, seems to be a true masterpiece. Even the packaging immediately caught my attention, and it is a sweet, harmonious scent with a wonderful orange note - perfect for anyone who loves sweet summer fragrances.