Essences Insensées (Jasmine) 2015 bottle - diptyqueparfums.com
When Kay and I started this blog seven (yes, seven!) years ago, we had very clear ideas about what we liked and what we didn’t like in fragrances.
To be honest, my list of what I didn’t like was longer than my list of what I liked. I think this is fairly typical. People love gourmands or iris scents and then seek out and buy fragrances that feature those notes – the same way one is drawn to favourite colours or flavours.
But writing this blog has led me to explore new ingredients and try new fragrances with new-to-me notes. And, you know what? Over time, my tastes have expanded and my list of what I like is now longer than my list of what I don’t like.
One of the notes that shifted to the ‘Like List’ over time was jasmine. Seven years ago my relationship was jasmine was, well, complicated but smelling in fragrances where it played a minor role I began to ‘know’ it, appreciate it and understand it. My relationship with jasmine now is very simple: I find it irresistible. Really, really, irresistible. I mean, like, I’ve been bingeing on jasmine – sweet, floral, indolic, dirty, or not, depending on how it’s handled. And for the last while, I can’t seem to get enough of it.
So in the spirit of exploring, growing and sharing, which is what we hope this website is all about, I want to tell you about Essences Insensées (Jasmine) 2015 by Diptyque. Let’s start with the ‘2015’ bit of the name.
Each year since 2014, Diptyque has launched a limited-edition fragrance inspired by the quality of the harvest of a specific ingredient as part of its Essences Insensées collection. In 2014 the featured ingredient was mimosa, in 2015 it was jasmine and in 2016 it was rose de Mai. The year in the name of the fragrance indicates the featured note.
The mimosa based Essences Insensées (Mimosa) 2014 is what drew me to the collection in the first place and has become a favourite of mine and right beside it is the jasmine based Essences Insensées eau de parfum 2015.
Of Essences Insensées eau de parfum 2015, the Diptyque website says: “After mimosa in 2014, jasmine provides the inspiration for this new opus. A very special kind of jasmine. Grown in Grasse, at the centre of the perfume industry, it isn’t picked until the autumn, at the very end of the season, when it has a fruity, almost candied quality.
Essences Insensées is the result of the blooms picked by happenstance, and time itself. A fleeting fragrance whose origins lie on the hillsides of Grasse.” A.Very. Special. Kind. Of. Jasmine. Sold.
It opens sweet and heady with aromatic, orange blossom, the warmth of my skin making it deeper and richer, as it teases the indolic, opulent and lush jasmine up through it. As it blooms, there’s a subtle soapiness that appears just before it gets all fruity (I smell pear and banana and strawberry) and honey-sweet and jammy – it’s the candied fruit quality described on the website. As this passes, a note of basil shows up and adds an herbal, green dimension to the fragrance. It all quiets down to a sensuous skin scent that reflects the fleeting fragrance of jasmine in the fields of Grasse in the autumn.
Basically, Essences Insensées (Jasmine) 2015 is a soliflore – a beautiful jasmine fragrance with supporting notes that let the jasmine shine. It’s not dirty or animalic at all but floral and feminine, in my opinion, despite being labeled ‘unisex’.
And the light, wafting scent of true jasmine in Essences Insensées eau de parfum 2015 is especially irresistible to me.
Essences Insensées (Jasmine) 2015 is listed in our Decant Store. Decants are $7.00 for 1 ml.