Jasmine is one of my favorite floral notes. One of the reasons that I enjoy it and the many iterations available in perfumery is the different faces it can show. It can have a wonderfully green character with a subdued floral character. Alternatively it can be as sweetly floral as any note in the olfactive flower shop. Finally, when the indoles, at its white flower core, are allowed to flourish jasmine turns almost animalic in its quality, the proverbial skank. It is this last aspect that I usually prefer because it evokes a fully blooming tropical specimen humid and dense.

For the latest release from By Kilian, Love and Tears; perfumer Calice Becker chose to create a jasmine soliflore. For this ninth fragrance in the L’Oeuvre Noire collection it is meant to complete the four fragrance exploration of love begun by Prelude to Love, Love, and Beyond Love. Each of those three fragrances had a floral note at the heart of each of them; iris, orange blossom, and tuberose, respectively. In each of the previous cases Mme. Becker found an ability to illuminate each of those floral notes by playing them off unusual counterpoints. A good example was Love with the interplay of orange blossom and marshmallow accord turned into a wonderful floral gourmand fragrance that allowed it to seem like something new.  Love and Tears attempts to cover the same ground but this time uses the central note to provide its own contrast as jasmine moves from the greener aspects early on to the cleanly floral aspects by the end.

 

Love and Tears opens with bergamot and petitgrain before the green style of jasmine appears. The citrus qualities of bergamot and petitgrain accentuate the greener qualities and the presence of cypress keeps the early development of Love and Tears tilted towards the verdant. Cistus sets up the transition as it ushers a deeper floral character out of the jasmine. Orange blossom brings out the white floral nature of jasmine but these are white flowers scrubbed clean of any indoles. Ylang ylang is also present and it is there mainly to keep the floral aspects of Love and Tears firmly in focus.

Love and Tears has outstanding longevity and average sillage.

As with every other By Kilian fragrance to date the quality of the ingredients is self-evident. The more I wore Love and Tears the more that quality won me over. I realized that Love and Tears is almost like a still life of jasmine. It shows you all of the beauty of the subject and allows one to return to it time and again to find that beauty unchanged.

Disclosure: This review was based on samples provided by By Kilian.

For those of you who are looking forward to trying Love and Tears it will be available first in the US on August 27, 2010 at MiN New York. Contact them through their website if jasmine is your thing.

Art Credits:

March Jasmine by Bryan Alexander http://fineartamerica.com/featured/march-jasmine-bryan-alexander.html

Jasmine photo: http://www.itmonline.org/jintu/jasmine.htm

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor