Floris — Night Scented Jasmine
Essence
Night Scented Jasmine is a 2006 eau de toilette from Floris, the long-established English house at 89 Jermyn Street. Despite its evocative name it is not the heady, indolic night-blooming jasmine the title promises. It is a fresh, green-edged white-floral bouquet, with jasmine softened and diffused through gardenia, narcissus, lily and a cool violet-leaf top, built in the restrained, polite English style the house is known for. What makes it distinctive is precisely that restraint: it tames notes usually narcotic into something subtle, daytime-friendly and almost soapy-clean, a jasmine for people who find most jasmines too much. The modern EDT revisits an original 1806 Floris “Jasmine” tied to memories of Menorcan summers.
Scent Profile
The opening is green and bright rather than floral, with violet leaf and blackcurrant-bud-like green notes giving a cool, slightly tart, sappy lift and neroli and mandarin adding a sunny citrus freshness. Some read this top as a fresh green blast that can initially register as a clean floral soap before it settles. The heart assembles the white-floral chorus of jasmine, gardenia, narcissus, lily, mimosa and ylang-ylang, but its defining trait is that the jasmine is largely non-indolic and restrained. How much indole emerges varies with skin chemistry: some find a timid, frosted-glass jasmine, others a fuller floral that gardenia makes creamy, and many read a “jasmine tea” effect from the green and violet-leaf interplay. The base of sandalwood, musk, vetiver and amber stays light and behind the scenes, anchoring rather than asserting. The scent is largely linear once the green opening burns off, settling into dewy, soap-clean white florals over a faint green-woody musk.
Performance
Performance is the consistent weak point. Longevity and sillage are modest, and the fragrance reads as a soft, close-to-skin EDT that often needs re-spritzing across a day. Sillage is intimate but pleasant near the skin rather than projecting. Applying generously and onto clothing helps it last, and one notable account found it actually held up better as an understated cool-weather scent than its summery billing would suggest.
Wearing Context
It is marketed and most often worn as a warm-weather, daytime fragrance, a fresh spring-and-summer scent ideal for putting on after a shower. The brand frames it as evening and romantic, all lanterns and Mediterranean terraces, but the real wear skews fresh and daytime, the kind of thing to reach for when you just want to smell good without anything loud. Social perception leans feminine and polite, making it office-safe and inoffensive, though several wearers note it can read very well on a man. Overall it is versatile and unobtrusive, compliment-friendly up close rather than a projection bomb.
Comparisons & DNA
Against Cacharel Anais Anais, Night Scented Jasmine reads creamier and more jasmine-forward where the Cacharel is more powdery and lily-driven. Against Guerlain Jardins de Bagatelle, it is more about jasmine than tuberose and gives up some performance. It shares a green-violet DNA line with Grey Flannel, and among heavier jasmines it sits closest to Bulgari Jasmin Noir while standing far from the indolic soliflores like Serge Lutens A La Nuit. The clearest placement is that it lives at the clean, non-indolic, green end of the jasmine spectrum, the opposite pole from those narcotic jasmines, and within Floris it shares a density and performance profile with White Rose.
Reception
Consensus is warmly positive on quality and blending, with the recurring caveat that it under-delivers as a “jasmine” and under-performs on longevity. Praise centers on its well-mannered, elegant, never-synthetic character, with many crediting Floris for genuine, classically structured florals. The dominant criticism is twofold: those expecting heady night-blooming jasmine are disappointed, and the weak sillage and longevity frustrate even devoted fans. A smaller split concerns the green-soapy opening, which some find clean-soap-like at first spray and others consider the freshest, most appealing part. It is a safe choice for lovers of clean, green white-florals and the Floris style, and a poor one for jasmine purists chasing indoles.
Versions & Reformulation
The current Night Scented Jasmine (2006) is a modern reworking of an original 1806 Floris “Jasmine,” so its lineage spans two centuries, but the 2006 EDT is treated as a single composition with no widely documented reformulations. It is offered as an EDT alongside matching body products rather than in multiple concentrations, and references to an EDP are unverified.
Acquisition Notes
This is mid-tier British heritage pricing, and the fragrance remains in production direct from Floris, which makes occasional reports of discontinuation inconsistent with its current availability. The EDT comes in 50 ml and 100 ml, with 10 ml travel sizes and a sample set also offered. Third-party listings have shown around $140 for 100 ml, while the brand’s own channel and discounters often price lower. The best authentic channels are Floris directly and reputable retailers, and samples are easy to obtain. No significant counterfeit or batch-code concerns are documented.
Notable Facts & Lore
- The house frames it as a love letter from founder Juan Famenias Floris to summers in Menorca with his wife Elizabeth.
- The original inspiration is dated to an 1806 Floris creation, revisited in the 2006 EDT.
- Floris is the oldest English perfumer, established in 1730 at 89 Jermyn Street.
- Its historic clientele is said to have included Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Mary Shelley and Marilyn Monroe.
- No firm perfumer credit is published; a family attribution to Edward Bodenham is only speculative.