Heart note · Floral

Jasmine Sambac

Jasminum sambac

Jasmine sambac is lush, fruity and heady, with green, tea-like facets. Discover the jasmine that brings richness to white and fruity florals.

What does jasmine sambac smell like in perfume?

Jasmine sambac smells lush, fruity and heady, with a green, almost tea-like freshness. It is brighter and more fruity than jasmine grandiflorum, and is the jasmine used to scent jasmine tea.

What Is Jasmine Sambac?

Jasmine sambac, Jasminum sambac, also called Arabian jasmine, is an evergreen climbing shrub with small, waxy white flowers. It is grown mainly in India and China for perfumery and tea.

Jasmine Sambac Scent Profile

Here is how strongly each facet of jasmine sambac comes through, from our own smelling-strip notes.

How Perfumers Use Jasmine Sambac

Perfumers use jasmine sambac to give florals a radiant, fruity brightness. It is powerful, so a little goes a long way, and it pairs well with citrus, orange blossom and soft woods.

Sambac vs grandiflorum

Jasmine sambac is fruitier, greener and more tea-like. Jasmine grandiflorum is richer, sweeter and more classically perfumey. We use both, for different effects.

Growing and harvesting jasmine sambac

Jasmine sambac grows mainly in southern India, especially Tamil Nadu, and in China. The flowers open in the evening. For perfume, the buds are picked by hand early in the morning, and they open and release their scent later that day, when they are extracted into an absolute or a CO2 extract.

The molecules behind jasmine sambac’s scent

Benzyl acetate gives jasmine its sweet, fruity note. Linalool, stronger in sambac than in other jasmines, adds a fresh, tea-like lift. Methyl anthranilate brings a grape-like sweetness, and a trace of indole adds warmth and depth.

Natural or synthetic jasmine sambac?

Most jasmine notes in mainstream perfumes are built from synthetics such as hedione, benzyl acetate and hexyl cinnamic aldehyde. Natural jasmine sambac is greener, fruitier and more complex, with tea-like and indolic facets that a reconstruction smooths away.

Jasmine sambac in history and tradition

Jasmine sambac is the national flower of the Philippines, where it is called sampaguita, and of Indonesia, where it is called melati putih. In South India the flowers are strung into garlands and worn in the hair, and they are sold by the length in markets. In China the flowers are used to scent jasmine tea.

How to smell jasmine sambac yourself

Brew a cup of good jasmine tea, which is scented by layering tea leaves with fresh jasmine sambac flowers. Smell the dry leaves, then the steam. You can also grow jasmine sambac as a house plant in Britain, and smell the flowers when they open in the evening.

Smell Jasmine Sambac in Prosody London Perfumes

For jasmine sambac at its most expressive, try Jacinth Jonquil. Jasmine sambac opens a sunny spring floral with jonquil and hyacinth accords. You will also find jasmine sambac in Neroli Nuance.

What Blends Well With Jasmine Sambac?

Questions About Jasmine Sambac

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