Review: Diptyque’s L’Eau Papier Is Our Favorite Summer Skin Scent

Aug 22, 2023

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The popularity of “skin scents,” or fragrances that are meant to enhance a person’s own natural musks, are all the rage right now—for good reason. For most, their appeal lies in their simplicity. Rather than smell like singular notes that can be identified as foreign to your person, skin scents act as a sensual enhancer of sorts, imbuing their wearer with a softer, spicier, or muskier version of their own personal scent.

In the pursuit to find the perfect second skin fragrance for my own collection, I came across a slew of options that sounded lovely in description but didn’t produce the desired result. Once spritzed, some tended to come across as too pungent or artificial, or barely perceptible after an hour or two of wear.

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That was, until I came across an unlikely new skin scent by Diptyque, called L’eau Papier ($175), which finally offered something different. (It just so happens to be one of our favorite summer fragrances for men.) Just like a fresh sheet of paper, L’eau Papier offers an open canvas on which to work—whether I desire a fresh, subtle second skin scent or I want to layer it for a more dramatic effect.

To pay its olfactory respects to paper, one of mankind’s simplest yet most important inventions, Diptyque turned to legendary perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin, who comes from a family of perfumers and jasmine pickers. He’s the same nose behind some of the brand’s most iconic scents, from Do Son to Eau Duelle.

“Creating a perfume for Diptyque is like writing a book. You have to have a story, an introduction, a structure—the primary materials that echo each other to form a narrative,” says Pellegrin. “I’ve tried to convey the subtle, sensitive interaction when ink is applied to a sheet of paper through an overdose of musks.”

In L’eau Papier, white musks are accompanied by an unlikely bedfellow: roasted sesame seeds, along with floral mimosa notes and cereal and ink accords. One of the most interesting notes, an accord of rice steam, evokes the grain of the paper and adds a comforting warmth to the fragrance.

The bottle’s label, designed by French artist Alix Waline, also pays homage to that beautiful moment that ink meets paper, featuring tasteful blots that Waline created dot by dot and contrasts the typically illustrative Diptyque bottle design.

Perhaps as a journalist, I’m innately drawn toward a fragrance whose inspiration is the canvas of literature, but it doesn’t hurt that a few spritzes of L’eau Papier are sure to elicit poetic compliments from friends and passersby alike.