Chatler Only One Jasmine is a jasmine perfume for women.
Jasmine and rose are the two ‘foundation stones’ of perfumery. There’s barely a scent out there which doesn’t feature a type of jasmine somewhere in its construction – but all jasmines aren’t created equal, and (dare we say it) there’s a lot of snobbery about jasmine, with fragrance houses falling over themselves to boast of the priceless quality of their jasmine…
There are actually over 200 species of jasmine – but two members of the beautiful white-flowered jasmine family are most ‘prized’. The first is Jasminun grandiflorum, which translates as ‘big-flowered jasmine’ Chanel have their own fields of this in Grasse, and you can read about the harvest and maceration process here – and this is sometimes just referred to, then, as ‘Grasse jasmine’, because it grows so well there. The other precious member of the family is Sambac Jasmine – sometimes known as Tuscan jasmine, or Arabian jasmine, depending on who you’re speaking to… Nowadays, jasmine is grown for the fragrance industry everywhere from India to France, Morocco, Algeria, Spain and Morocco. (It actually originated in India and China, and – who knew? – is a member of the olive family.)
Jasmine gives a richness and intensity to fragrances: a sweet floral note, but with a dead-sexy muskiness to it. If you smell different concentrated ‘absolutes’ (the oily liquids created through macerating the jasmine flowers), they have their own characters: some smell medicinal, some sweet, some musky, some green. It’s extraordinary that a single plant can smell so different, depending on where it’s grown. The genius of perfumers is knowing just what they have to do, to blend those into perfectly constructed scents for us to wear.