A deep dive to discover the many faces of Jasmine

To help you choose and understand your fragrance, discover these precious raw materials, their origins, their secrets, and their use in the Art of Perfumery. This time, we will start by the Jasmine. Let’s Go!

The perfumery world

Jasmine is one of the most iconic flowers in perfumery. Its powerful, intoxicating, and sensual fragrance makes it a must-have! Of the 200 varieties of jasmine that exist, perfumers use two: Jasmine Grandiflorum, grown in Egypt and India, and Jasmine Sambac, grown in India. Grandiflorum has an animalic, sunny, and fruity scent, while Jasmine Sambac has a greener olfactory profile and honeyed facets reminiscent of orange blossom. Picked by hand at sunrise, the flowers are extracted using volatile solvents to obtain a concrete (flower wax), which is heated with alcohol to obtain jasmine absolute. It takes around 8,000 flowers to obtain 600 grams of absolute!

A high value perfume ingredient

While Jasmine Sambac has been known and highly prized in Southeast Asia and the Middle East for centuries, particularly for the manufacture of attars (alcohol-free oil-based perfumes), its use in Western perfumery only became widespread in the 1980s. Until then, perfumers mainly used Grandiflorum, which was grown in Grasse, among other places. Today, very little jasmine remains in Grasse, and what little there is reserved exclusively for the perfumery use.

Worldwide presence of use of Jasmine in cultural issue

In China and Japan, jasmine has been consumed in tea and infusions for thousands of years. In India, it plays a central role in traditions and ceremonies, so much so that 90% of its production is dedicated to this purpose. Every day, countless garlands of Jasmine Sambac called “gajra” are made to adorn and perfume women's hair and temples. The small white flower is also omnipresent in funeral rites and weddings. In addition, Ayurvedic medicine attributes relaxing and aphrodisiac properties to it.