Jasmine "The Queen"
An actual treasure. The name comes from the Persian "Yasmin" meaning "Gift from God"—a treasure indeed.
Most commonly, jasmine grows as a petite, white to pale pink star-shaped flower on a bushy, climbing shrub with deep green leaves. The flowers are small and unassuming, about 1 cm across. Originating in India and China, it spread throughout the ancient world to the Mediterranean and now grows across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the US. Its scent extracts easily through all methods, including traditional enfleurage, making jasmine available to perfumers for thousands of years.
Today, absolutes are produced from kilos of hand-picked jasmine blossoms harvested at their peak. The flowers are soaked in solvent to extract the sweet, heady scent compounds and plant waxes, yielding a "concrete"—a waxy aromatic paste, a jasmine butter. This is then processed to remove waxes, creating a liquid "absolute," which is what perfumers typically use.
The two most common varieties in perfume are Jasmine Grandiflorum (softer, creamier, headier) and Jasmine Sambac (greener, more vibrant, more indolic). Because of jasmine absolute's incredible cost and intense aroma, perfumers often create jasmine accords using synthetics like hedione—a clean, soft, hazy floral that appears in nearly every perfume.
Scent
Jasmine is the star of the narcotic floral family: richly floral, heady, enveloping, creamy, and indolic. Narcotic florals make the air feel thick with presence and overtake you with their strength and beauty.
Jasmine's complexity comes from two key facets. First, benzyl acetate—sharp, banana-y, with a distinct acetone note that lifts through the air. Second, indoles—found in anything decaying. On their own, indoles smell of mothballs, bad breath, even faintly fecal. They're a reminder of our corporeal nature: even the most beautiful things grow and break down. In jasmine, indoles add richness, depth, and a sense of life.
This duality inspired Sex & Jasmine. There's a soft, delicate cuteness surrounded and filled with something more bodily. Sex and life are all these things at once—beautiful, symbolic, caring, but also bodily, sweaty, ravenous.
Meaning
Present in so many cultures for so long, jasmine carries rich symbolic meaning: healing, calming, meditative, arousing, meant to attract love, luck, and money. Anything a person could want has been attributed to jasmine at some point, so it's probably worth a try.
Jasmine has always been one of perfumery's most important ingredients. With such a reign, it's a beautiful material to explore in all its different expressions.
