Best Of
10 Perfumes That Smell Just Like Jasmine
Dior CHRISTIAN J'Adore Women Eau De Parfume
Jasmine turns up in a huge number of perfumes, usually in amounts too small to pick out. These ten are the ones where you can actually smell it, from a single-note Demeter to Tom Ford’s peppery Jasmin Rouge. Start with Gucci Bloom for a big white floral, Jasmin Rouge for spice, or J’adore for jasmine inside a bouquet.
What Does Jasmine Smell Like?
Sweet, heady and slightly fruity, with a warm, animalic undertone that some people love and others find too much. That undertone comes from indole, a molecule that in high concentrations smells fecal and in the tiny amounts found in jasmine reads as skin-like and intimate. It’s why jasmine smells so different at night, when the flowers release more of it, and why “indolic” is perfume shorthand for a dirty, sensual white floral.
Benzyl acetate supplies the sweet, fruity, slightly pear-like part, and methyl jasmonate gives the fresh, green lift. The two jasmines in perfume differ in the balance:
| Jasmine | Where it’s grown | How it smells | On this list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grandiflorum | Grasse, Egypt, India | Rounder, warmer, more classic | Chanel N°5, J’adore, Idôle |
| Sambac | India, China | Greener and fruitier, close to jasmine tea | Jasmin Rouge, Jo Malone, Mon Guerlain, Good Girl |
Jasmine absolute is also among the most expensive natural materials perfumers buy, so most of the jasmine in mass-market perfume is partly or entirely built from synthetics. The most important is hedione (methyl dihydrojasmonate), which Firmenich made in 1962. It smells of airy, lemony jasmine with almost no sweetness, and Dior’s Eau Sauvage (1966) was the first major perfume to use it at a high dose. Today it’s in a huge share of all perfume, and it’s a large part of why so many perfumes have a transparent, glowing quality without smelling floral.
The 10 Perfumes
Chanel N°5 Eau de Parfum
Chanel has grown its own jasmine in Grasse for decades, and N°5 is the reason. The EDP blends rose and jasmine with aldehydes, citrus and vanilla, and the aldehydes are what people mean by “the N°5 smell”: waxy, soapy and fizzy, sitting on top of the flowers. The jasmine is underneath, giving the whole thing its warmth.
It’s the most famous perfume in the world, and it smells like a perfume more than a flower. If you want a jasmine you’d recognise from a garden, start further down.
Dior J’adore Eau de Parfum
Dior pairs jasmine grandiflorum with jasmine sambac, then adds ylang-ylang and Damascus rose. Using both jasmines is the clever part: the grandiflorum gives warmth, the sambac gives a fruitier, greener edge, and together they read as golden more than white. The rose and ylang-ylang round it into a bouquet.
Buy the original EDP, not L’Or, Parfum d’Eau or Infinissime.
Tom Ford Jasmin Rouge
Jasmin Rouge uses jasmine sambac sepals absolute, the green cup at the base of the flower, with black and white peppercorn, clary sage, ylang-ylang, labdanum and amber. Pepper and sambac are a natural match: both have a sharp, slightly green edge, and the labdanum’s leathery warmth turns the result red instead of white.
One wearer gets a cinnamon-candy opening followed by spiced jasmine tea, which fits sambac’s tea-like character.
Gucci Bloom Eau de Parfum
Bloom (2017) is Gucci’s big white floral: jasmine bud, tuberose and Rangoon creeper. Rangoon creeper is a South Asian vine whose flowers change from white to red as they open, and in Bloom it brings a powdery, almost cosmetic note that keeps the jasmine and tuberose from getting syrupy.
It smells more like a bouquet of real flowers than anything else here, green stems included.
Jo Malone Jasmine Sambac & Marigold Cologne Intense
Jo Malone pairs jasmine sambac with marigold, ylang-ylang, benzoin, amber and vanilla. Marigold is green and bitter, close to tomato leaf, and it pulls the jasmine toward the greenhouse. Benzoin and vanilla warm the base.
One wearer finds it fresh and realistic, like a flower nursery after rain. Another gets a green, bitter, soapy scent with little warmth. The marigold explains both. The full name matters: Jo Malone has several jasmine perfumes.
Guerlain Mon Guerlain Eau de Parfum
Mon Guerlain (2017) is built on lavender, jasmine sambac, vanilla and sandalwood, with iris and coumarin. Lavender and jasmine is an unusual pairing, and here the lavender is soft instead of barbershop. The jasmine sits between it and the vanilla, so the whole thing comes across as a creamy, slightly floral vanilla. It’s the most comforting perfume on the list.
More on the lavender side in our lavender perfume list.
Lancôme Idôle Eau de Parfum
Idôle (2019) puts rose and jasmine over white musk, vanilla, patchouli and cedar, with pear, bergamot and pink pepper on top. Retailers list a clean chypre accord too, and it’s the airiest jasmine here: the white musk keeps the flowers sheer, and the bottle is famously slim.
If N°5 feels like your grandmother’s jasmine, this is the 21st-century answer.
Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau de Toilette
Daisy has jasmine with gardenia and violet in its heart, under wild strawberry, violet leaf and grapefruit. The jasmine is soft and the strawberry leads, so this is jasmine for people who don’t think they like white florals. It also appears on our gardenia list for the same reason.
Carolina Herrera Good Girl Eau de Parfum
Good Girl puts tuberose and jasmine sambac between almond and a base of tonka bean and cocoa. The almond and tonka push it toward a gourmand, and the jasmine keeps it from tipping into a dessert. It’s the darkest, sweetest take on jasmine here, and the stiletto bottle is unmistakable.
Demeter Jasmine Cologne
Demeter’s Jasmine is the flower without the perfume around it. It’s the cheapest way to find out whether you like jasmine itself, and a good thing to layer under something woody. Single-note colognes are light by design, so expect a quiet scent.
Which Jasmine Should You Pick?
| If you want | Try |
|---|---|
| A classic perfume with jasmine at its heart | Chanel N°5, J’adore |
| Spice | Jasmin Rouge |
| A garden full of white flowers | Gucci Bloom |
| Green and slightly bitter | Jo Malone Jasmine Sambac & Marigold |
| Creamy and sweet | Mon Guerlain, Good Girl |
| Clean and modern | Idôle |
| Fruity and young | Daisy |
| Just the flower | Demeter |
If the rose in J’adore and Idôle appeals, these rose perfumes take it further. For the history behind N°5 and Eau Sauvage, see the history of perfume.
Table of Contents
- What Does Jasmine Smell Like?
- The 10 Perfumes
- Chanel N°5 Eau de Parfum
- Dior J’adore Eau de Parfum
- Tom Ford Jasmin Rouge
- Gucci Bloom Eau de Parfum
- Jo Malone Jasmine Sambac & Marigold Cologne Intense
- Guerlain Mon Guerlain Eau de Parfum
- Lancôme Idôle Eau de Parfum
- Marc Jacobs Daisy Eau de Toilette
- Carolina Herrera Good Girl Eau de Parfum
- Demeter Jasmine Cologne
- Which Jasmine Should You Pick?
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