Spring is here and Gwyneth Paltrow’s newest seasonal fragrance was inspired by sushi, sort of. Specifically, her new perfume is called Shiso, named after a fancy Japanese leaf most commonly found in omakase dinners and as a wasabi placeholder (it’s also known as perilla). In fancier sushi plates, shiso is the fernlike leaf upon which wasabi most commonly sits or under sashimi, which you might not have even known was edible. In your less-expensive sushi plates, shiso is typically thriftily replicated as that plastic “green thing” that you aren’t supposed to eat.
But there’s nothing fishy about Goop’s Edition 02, despite its Japanese culinary namesake. The name refers more to the spicy and herby nature of the shiso leaf, creating a spicy and green fragrance. Goop describes the scent, created by perfumer Douglas Little, as smelling like “cool air, pale sun, new life unfurling on the forest floor.” I think it smells a bit like a heady mix of a sunny, spicy herb garden and an aromatic arugula and green salad, with a bit of a burning Diptyque’s Feu de Bois candle. Unlike the many rose and floral scents that tend to be released by the dozens around this time for spring, this scent smells refreshingly earthy, fresh, yet smokey and sexy. True to Goop form, each scent is also “natural,” which, although difficult to define, means that each of the ingredients was extracted from a plant either by steam or heat extraction, cold pressing, or carbon-dioxide extraction (they’re all listed here).
