Aerin perfume: it was always going to be very pretty, wasn’t it? The cosmetics line certainly is, with its pale pink packaging and its gold compacts and its flattering, illuminating makeup shades. The perfumes don’t let the side down; they come in petite glass bottles with chic labelling and smooth, precious-stone-like lids. All very feminine, but in a pleasingly modern way.
Ikat Jasmine is one of the only jasmine fragrances I can bring myself to wear; I love the smell of jasmine in the air, but I’m not too keen when it hits the skin. Or my skin, to be more accurate. I don’t mind it so much on other people, but I can find it a little overwhelming and heavy on myself. It gives me a headache. Saying that, I’ve used plenty of body products containing Jasmine and not suffered any dramatic fainting fits; perhaps it’s just when the scent is nearer to my head!
Back to Ikat Jasmine and its delicate, clean scent. It reminds me of freshly-washed hair – maybe my Mum used to use something with jasmine in when I was small, I’ll have to ask her. But yes; freshly-washed hair and clean, inviting bathrooms. If this perfume was a bathroom (random!), it would be one in a beautiful beachfront house, with whitewashed floorboards and one of those big claw-footed baths with old-fashioned taps. The window would be open and the long white curtains would be billowing in the slight breeze, and it would be the type of bathroom that had stylish black and white photos on the wall, but a collection of starfish and conch shells lined up along the windowsill. (Sorry, been obsessing over too many interiors mags recently!)
But there’s a method to my description madness; Ikat Jasmine seems to have this sea-air freshness about it, rather than the sometimes cloying, heady, incense-stick richness that jasmine fragrances can often have. I have a feeling that the appeal of this particular jasmine, for me, at least, is down to the hints of tuberose and sandalwood – neither overly apparent on their own, but both subtly hanging about in the background taking the edge of the jasmine and softening everything up a bit, making it all every so slightly powdery. I won’t say that Ikat Jasmine will ever be on my “popular shelf”, but it has given me a new appreciation of white florals.
(Disclaimer: it’s quite possible that everything I smell at the moment is completely off-kilter. I’m not sure quite how much pregnancy hormones affect smell in the second trimester! I’ll probably have to re-visit all of my fragrance posts after the baby’s born…)
(Update: I’ve just seen that I wrote a post about Jasmine-Scented Things a few years ago. How tastes change, so funny that I liked Jasmine Rouge from Tom Ford – it’s way too much for me now!)
Aerin’s Ikat Jasmine is £85 from JohnLewis.com
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