CREED
Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie

bergamot
neroli
powdery notes
aldehydes

rose
jasmine
orange blossom

sandalwood
vanilla
amber

‘A rich and floral scent, Jasmine Impératrice Eugénie is the narrative of an English garden in full bloom.’ – Creed

Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie goes down as one of my biggest surprises in my years of sampling fragrances. Now, I’ve never been a big Creed fan and I had no preconceived notions upon smelling Jasmin Imperatrice for the first time. Or maybe I should say, no well-informed ones and I was expecting this to be a light, fluffy, strongly feminine leaning scent, perhaps akin to a Wind Flowers and I couldn’t be more wrong.

Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie smells unabashedly vintage. In style, but based off my sample, also in execution. You could’ve told me this sample was from a 25-50 years old bottle and I would believe it. It’s very oily, very skanky, which is not what I usually think of when I think Creed. I ended up buying a bottle after this review and assuming that it’s a relatively new bottle, my sentiments on it smelling vintage remain unchanged.

Some people will find the opening of this ‘pissy’ as it has that civet-neroli-esque floral start with a lot of acidity and you can imagine an animalic purr that varies between perhaps pissy and cleaning product. A lot of aldehydes. And it’s lovely.

What’s even lovelier, is the sandalwood base. To combat that potentially sharp bright side, you’re welcomed almost straight away with a truly soft and pasty, balmy woodiness. Making this skanky jasmine less harsh and in your face as for example a similar ‘pissy’ one such as Perris Jasmin de Pays. The sandalwood is absolutely the star of the show here and reminds me of proper Mysore sandalwoods, which are more subtle in scent, more about texture and working as a fixative and not as sweet and milky as a lot of sandalwood variatons and replacements.

There’s a strong powdery core here, again wearing retro. It balances a comforting warmth with the clean powdery side well. It definitely gets sweet, but I don’t see the often made comparisons to Guerlain Shalimar too much. Shalimar by comparison, is much sweeter and a completely different scent profile overall. I do think that Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie leans much closer to Guerlain Samsara. I was mostly reminded of iris-loaded scents like Stephane Humber Lucas Khol de Bahrein and at times also Les Abstraits Belle Ame. Jasmin Imperatrice has more florals than any of them however.

While parts of the powdery florals feel about as feminine leaning as you can frame it, the overall composition has more of a unisex vibe to me. With the vanilla, sandalwood, but also a sort of mossy edge to it that a lot of vintages have.

Not a mass-appealing fragrance and reviews I’ve seen on it are divisive, but in my opinion this is one of the best Creed fragrances on the market anno 2024 and the first Creed I ended up adding to my collection.