Woman With a Parasol (Mme. Monet and Son) by Claude Monet, 1875, photo National Gallery of Art
The whispering sweetness of magnolia blossom shakes in the wind. A waltz of clouds whirling and folding overhead until bright shafts of sunlight cuts in. Bergamot is sharp in the air, the clover smell of sweet mown grass. A parasol turns against the early afternoon sky, dainty and picturesque. Her son jumps and repeats a rhyme every few steps. Some feet away, he is committing the scene in watercolor oils to canvas, lifting his head and smiling before focusing on the brushstroke. The pond smells of water lily and moss rise, and the shadows grow across the tall grasses and field flowers as the sun travels. Sampaquita, or sampaguita, is the Portugeuse name for jasmine sambac, which is native to southern Asia, in India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. But despite sampaquita’s far-flung origins, this is no tropical melange, but a French watercolour, an early summer scent of gossamer blossoms, aqueous blooms and grass. Flowers and grass peek through the bright dabs of fruit the way the sun waits behind fleeting clouds, beaming when the moment is right, then returning to the soft-focus of an impressionist canvas. Ormonde Jayne Sampaquita’s floral aromas feel caught in time, evanescent, like the turn of Mme. Monet’s head, as she pauses momentarily for her husband’s brushstroke.
Stock photo via Pickpik
Sampaquita’s opening has the carefree quality of Monet’s portrait of his wife and son. A spray of bergamot, so precise you can smell the juice of the fruit, its pith and bitter rind, joins with freesia in a sunshower of springtime. The effect of these first few minutes is akin to opening the windows wide in early May, when the ground smells of grass and new tree moss. A splash of lychee, with its rosewater perfume, is an unexpected smile as well as a smart choice for marrying the fruitiness of Sampaquita with the rose that will join later. There’s the stalky, green girlishness of lily-of-the-valley next, mixing with passing shadows of moss and a vetiver so subtle I can detect it only by its slight olive-oil tang.
Photo by Jean Francois Campos for Marie Claire, January 2013
Sampaquita shares a transparent construction with its siblings that allows notes clarity. At varying moments, each aroma will make itself known, even if it does so the quietly. Sampaquita’s paler, more evanescent flowers – magnolia, water lilies – could have drowned beneath the vernal headiness of jasmine sambac and freesia. But, after opening the perfume, these filmy notes hover without ever disappearing. In contrast, opaquely heady freesia and that emerald lily-of-the-valley, settle back and sit tranquilly in the background, like pale brush strokes against darker hues.
Stock photo via dreamstime
Gradually, Sampaquita takes on the diffuse colours of Monet’s palette; flowers shimmering like water dappled with sunlight, touches of springlike scents like tiny paint striations creating olfactory shapes that are at once indistinct and known. It is not the most complicated of Ormonde Jayne’s scents, but it is one of the most poignantly lovely.
Notes: Lychee, grass oil, bergamot, magnolia, sampaquita absolute, freesia, muguet, rose, water lilies, musk, vetiver, moss and ambrette seed.
Disclaimer: Bottle of Ormonde Jayne Sampaquita generously provided by Europerfumes. My opinions are my own.
Lauryn Beer, Senior Editor
Thanks to the generosity of Europerfumes, U.S. distributor for Ormonde Jayne, we have a 50 ml tester bottle of Ormonde Jayne Sampaquita for one registered reader in the U.S. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what strikes you about Ormonde Jayne Sampaquita and if you have a favourite Ormonde Jayne perfume. Draw closes 3/7/2020.
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