Fragrance Friday: YSL LIBRE Eau de Toilette

When Yves Saint Laurent Beauty released the beautiful scent known as LIBRE back in 2019, it was immediately in a class of its own. The dual creators of LIBRE made the original, provocative move to take a classic masculine fragrance style, known as the fougère, and morph it sensually into a feminine perfume – just like Yves Saint Laurent re-tailored the tuxedo for women and created a modern fashion icon. Naturally, the launch party to accompany it in New Zealand was equally as fabulous, and the fragrance? Divine.
A year later the brand released LIBRE Eau de Parfum Intense, a more sensual take on the original modern and feminine fougère that I fell very much in love with, so when I heard there was a new LIBRE girl on the block? I was beyond excited.
A lighter, fresher take on the LIBRE signature fragrance that immediately makes me think of long, hot summer nights, the new LIBRE Eau de Toilette is a bright and fresh interpretation of the iconic Yves Saint Laurent Eau de Parfum. Bursts of French Lavender Essence and Moroccan Orange Blossom combine with an icy White Tea Accord to create a totally modern fragrance, and the incredible launch dinner at Bishop Selwyn Chapel in Auckland’s Parnell held each guest in awe of the new scent’s sexy wearability.
The structure of the original LIBRE composition celebrates the signature tension present in all YSL fragrances: the tension between aromatic lavender from France and sensual orange blossom absolute from Morocco. The Eau de Toilette takes this to another level in this next chapter of the LIBRE story, with the duality between warmth and cold. The smouldering orange blossom is infused with a colder, androgynous white tea accord, revealing a modern and bright fragrance full of sensuality.

Dua Lipa, the face of YSL LIBRE

The composition is the work of master perfumers, Anne Flipo and Carlos Benaïm, who say the three words that drove them through the development of LIBRE Eau de Toilette were: “transparency, limpidity and sincerity”. They sought to create a “’scent-sation’, like a shiver on the skin” – how fabulous is that?
The bottle is also a joy to behold and not to hide away, the delicate golden pink fragrance shade on full display in a vertical elongated vessel with the horizontal oversized cassandre​ embodying an undressed statement of freedom.
So unabashedly feminine and so easy to love, YSL LIBRE Eau de Toilette is available now.