If you’re looking for a cheap thrill at the perfume counters, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than something from Pacifica. Since expanding into personal fragrance in 2007, they’ve launched 22 straightforward, reliably wearable scents available in a variety of formats, including spray perfume ($22 for 29 ml), solid perfume ($9 for 10 g) and the newer roll-ons ($12 for 10 ml). The packaging is basic but fun, and they’re reasonably easy to find: Sephora has them, and I see the line in gift stores here and there.
The California Star Jasmine fragrance is their latest offering. As all of you gardeners already know, star jasmine (sometimes called Confederate jasmine) is not the same plant as true jasmine. It’s a vine with clusters of small jasmine-like white flowers, and in Southern California, you often see it used as a ground cover or trained to spill over a wall. I never grew it myself and my memory of the smell is hazy — all I can tell you is “good” and “sweet” — but Pacifica’s founder, Brook Harvey-Taylor, calls the perfume “a love note to the Southern California neighborhood where she grew up”.
California Star Jasmine opens on a slightly green fizzy citrus…
