Samsara was created with an intention to seduce—Jean-Paul Guerlain was supposedly wooing an Englishwoman who he gifted with the scent, using two ingredients she liked most: jasmine and sandalwood. It then became an official Guerlain fragrance in 1989, meant to reinvigorate the label’s perfumery business and inevitably becoming irresistible for more women. It was luxurious in its use of sandalwood in the beginning, although this had to be replaced eventually with some Polysantol. The rest of its ingredients remained more or less the same: ylang ylang, lemon, peach, iris, jasmine, rose, vanilla, amber, tonka bean and musk are still listed as its notes.
