Fragrance Friday: YSL Beauty LIBRE L’EAU NUE

Since its debut in 2019, Yves Saint Laurent Beauty’s LIBRE fragrance has been a huge favourite of mine, my love extending through its many iterations. Each of the various reinventions of the maison’s LIBRE aroma, an intoxicating amber and floral blend that has found fans all over the world, have been immediately captivating and unique in their own right, and the latest - LIBRE L’Eau Nue is no different.
A blissfully alcohol-free scent designed to lend the sun-kissed, radiant and sultry scent of long Mediterranean summers to your skin, this clever beauty is a succulent blend of juicy citruses and exquisite orange blossom that has been expressly crafted to bewitch – and to last all day long. Its power is thanks to its oil-in-water fragrance technology, which helps capture the most natural olfactory power of each ingredient, as though they had just been hand-picked from the tree.

Highly concentrated and pure bliss on the skin, the pulp and zest of green mandarin and bergamot from Calabria give L’Eau Nue its invigorating top notes, while LIBRE’s signature orange blossom from YSL’s own Ourika Community Gardens in Morocco unleashes its full, raw power from the first spray. Nestled at the foot of Morocco’s Atlas mountains, the Ourika Community Gardens created by Yves Saint Laurent Beauty embody the brand’s social and environmental commitment, and since 2017, a community of 32 local Berber women was set up to tend the gardens. The aim is to provide these women with access to entrepreneurial opportunities so that they can become more financially independent, and over the last five years, the members of the cooperative have diversified their activities so that in addition to growing plants for cosmetics, they also now manage plant nurseries and sell cereals and teas. This enables these women to gain real financial independence without having to move away from their home, and if you’ve ever been to the foot of the Atlas mountains you’ll see why – it really is heaven on earth.
Lastly, L’Eau Nue is also more than a fragrance. Developed over two years with more than 60 formulas tested, this new incarnation of LIBRE is a true tour-de-force achieved by Master Perfumers Anne Flipo and Carlos Benaïm, alongside YSL Beauty laboratories. Quite literally a beautifying infusion that melts onto your skin, the non-sticky formula leaves your skin with a soft, radiant glow, and because it’s alcohol-free, can also be misted onto your hair. I love!
It goes without saying that the accompanying campaign featuring friend of the maison, Dua Lipa is a vibrant ode to summer, celebrating “the luxury of sun-kissed skin, the mesmerising dance of golden sparkles on the sea, and the reflective beauty of golden jewelry in the sunlight.”

Just beautiful and available right now, I've fallen hard for LIBRE L’Eau Nue. And if this doesn’t have you dreaming of an escape to the Med, I don’t know what will x