Love's Soft Jasmin

It’s baaaaack! I bought a couple of bottles recently from the official Dana site, and have had ample time to test them now. This latest version of Soft Jasmin is close enough to the version I had as a teen in the early 90s that I’m pleased. Updated notes from the back of the package: Top: Jasmine Middle: Rose, lily-of-the-valley, green violet Base: Musk, orange flower It’s soft, for sure, but more mature than Love’s other offerings (currently only Baby Soft and Fresh Lemon). It’s a cozy, intimate but intoxicating jasmine. I have a feeling some might find it a bit too synthetic, but if you’ve ever caught a whiff of jasmine on a cool summer night, it really does smell almost artificially sweet. In a good way! What I really love about Soft Jasmin is that the jasmine is the star of the show, from beginning to end, without the musk crowding it out. Here, musk is a supporting actress, content on letting the jasmine take center stage. None of the other florals take over, either. I don’t detect the rose in this at all. I’ve been wearing this to bed, and it lasts through to the morning. I think performance would be worse during the day. Sillage is quite close. This doesn’t give me a headache, like other jasmine fragrances do. One last thing I want to share: While the original Soft Jasmin can be found secondhand across the web, and I’ve purchased several old bottles, both in the spray and the splash, it typically doesn’t hold up over time. The plastic splash bottles especially, even if “new” and never opened, are exposed to more air. The ones I’ve purchased tend to smell like acetone. They might have a bit of fragrance after drying, but it’s not enough to satisfy that nostalgic, teen-at-her-vanity experience, if that’s what you’re after. I’ve had slightly better luck with the glass spray bottles, but even then, it’s still a bit off. You might want to save yourself some heartache and just get a new bottle.

When I was a preteen/teen in the late 80's/early 90's, I discovered Love's Soft Jasmin and instantly fell in love with the softness and gentleness of the fragrance. I had a gold mirrored tray that I had on my dresser where I displayed my Soft Jasmin with the original Love's Baby Soft, along with my other inexpensive drugstore perfumes and strawberry and cherry flavored lip glosses. I don't know what happened to that bottle but I never stopped thinking of how it smelled. Every time I saw a jasmine perfume, I kept hoping it would smell like it. Over the past few months, I've been yearning to smell it again for nostalgic reasons, and Ebay came to the rescue because I found a brand new MEM Love's Soft Jasmine:) The seller must have taken good care in storing it because it smelled exactly how I remembered it... soft, pretty and feminine. Soft Jasmin just had that special something because it left a lasting impression on me all these years... I sprayed it on my wrist a moment ago and was instantly transported back to 5th grade and how I felt... shy, awkward, not yet comfortable in her own skin, but for a few moments when I sprayed that perfume, I felt pretty :) This special perfume bottle full of wonderful childhood memories is now sittting on my adult vanity table 30 years later. It makes me smile :)

I wore this when I was in 8th grade, in 1979/80. It was called "Love's Musky Jasmin Flower", and I always thought the name was awkward. I think it was released around 1972, but I'm not sure. There used to be a "Love's" makeup line, as well as the fragrance line. It was a popular brand even before the fame of the iconic "Love's Baby Soft". I think "Soft Jasmin" is a much better name for this green, airy, pretty jasmine. Without a doubt, I am anosmic to the musk used in this blend, these days, so the fragrance smells very different to me from what I remember of it. However, it's extremely pretty. It's too bad somebody doesn't remake this scent blend with better ingredients (and way less alcohol), because it would be a great seller!

The first "grown up" perfume I remember owning, after Petite Nate and Tinkerbell. How I cherished my bottle, it made my 8-year-old self feel like a teenager (back in '93!) It certainly begat my love for jasmine perfumes. I actually think it captures a "true" jasmine quality--Soft Jasmin reminds me of Mugler Alien, if you can believe it. I currently own a Dana bottle, and keep it safely stashed in my mini-fridge. It always takes me back. 10/10.

I had a small bottle of this when I was very young -- 7 years old. I remember it smelling much better than Baby Soft, which I also had a little bottle of. I badly wanted to like Baby Soft more, because it was pink, but Soft Jasmin was just so much better... What does it actually smell like? Jasmine, of course. When I opened this new bottle and tried it out I was a bit disappointed because I could've sworn I remembered a vanilla note or vanilla-like smell. After months of wearing this occasionally, I feel that there's actually a lot to be considered with this scent. It's deceptively simple. Yes, there's the Jasmine, which isn't super natural smelling...but then there's also this plastic-y artificial sweetness that I believe is what I mistook as vanilla back in 2007. And then there's a sort of ozonic quality as well. It smells very wet. Overall, Soft Jasmin errs towards artificiality, but you can definitely imagine that a real flower would smell like this. Longevity is definitely better than Baby Soft, but this is still quite fleeting, just as you'd expect it to be. Now we have to talk about the indoles. The indoles, the indoles, indoles! Yes, Soft Jasmin is indolic, and the indoles in here are quite appropriate for what Soft Jasmin is meant to be: a girl's first perfume during the last 30 years of the 20th century. The plastic ozonic type smell I mentioned earlier is how the indoles present themselves here. I don't know if I will repurchase this. I might save up for Mugler's Alien, which, to me, is like a grown-up version of Soft Jasmine. But who knows!