Flora Notis JILL STUART: From Floral Fragrance and Texture to a Signature Perfume

I also placed importance on a silky, luxurious texture.
Gabriela Chelariu (perfumer of Iconic Bloom)

Thinking of a perfume’s texture as petals enveloping the skin: that choice by its perfumer is embodied in Iconic Bloom, released by Flora Notis JILL STUART in 2026.

The idea connects with an approach that has considered fragrance and feel together since the brand’s birth in 2018. It allows people to choose not only flower-like scents, but also the lightness of an oil or the moist, rich feel of a cream. Flora Notis is a brand for welcoming the world of flowers loved by Jill Stuart into everyday life.

Key Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Commitments
References

Key Information

Brand name: Flora Notis JILL STUART
Launched: August 31, 2018, Japan
Founding and operating company: KOSÉ
Person whose world forms the brand’s foundation: Jill Stuart (fashion designer)
Meaning embodied in the name: “The essence of flowers”
Official website: Flora Notis JILL STUART

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

From Jill’s Fashion to Beauty

Jill Stuart grew up in New York with parents who ran a womenswear manufacturer. A jewelry and bag collection she presented at 15 caught the attention of the department store Bloomingdale’s. After studying fashion design formally, she established her own brand at 27. She opened a flagship store in SoHo and made her New York collections debut in 1993.

The beauty business began in 2005. Following a licensing agreement that year, KOSÉ undertook cosmetics development and manufacturing in Japan, acquiring global cosmetics trademark rights in 2009. This was the business’s path toward giving cosmetic form to a world that had expanded from Jill’s clothing and accessories.

KOSÉ Proposes a Flower-Filled Way of Living in 2018

Thirteen years after the beauty debut, KOSÉ launched a new lifestyle brand: Flora Notis. As interest grew in high-value-added body care and fragrance, the company expanded its proposition from the existing makeup-centered brand to a life surrounded by flowers.

At its center were the flowers Jill loved. On August 31, 2018, eaux de parfum, body care, and other products were released with fragrances expressing flowers as six bouquets. The first shop opened in LUMINE EST Shinjuku. Grounded in Jill’s love of flowers, it was a brand through which KOSÉ developed products and ideas for living.

At the time of its birth, the English-language beauty publication A Touch of Blusher also introduced it as a lifestyle brand centered on perfume and body care. It noted that the brand would begin in its own shops and online store rather than being sold alongside the existing Jill Stuart Beauty range. The concept was an independent retail setting in which floral fragrance played the leading role.

Spaces for Bringing Flowers into Life and Hair Care in 2020

The idea of a life with flowers extended beyond products. In 2020, the brand opened a shop at Sapporo Stellar Place under the concept “Duo Flower,” offering dried flowers. Bringing flowers into life through scent and displaying actual flowers were combined in one space.

Repair Hair Oil launched on September 4 of the same year. Its textures varied with the fragrance, with four types ranging from a light finish to a rich one. For scents worn in the hair, too, the brand created a route to selection through appearance and touch.

You can choose according to your preferred fragrance, texture, and finish.
Kyoko Koikeda (Flora Notis PR representative in 2023)

Explaining how to choose hair oil this way in 2023, PR representative Koikeda made the desired finish for the hair another entry point alongside scent. As floral perfume expanded to skin, hair, and rooms, the brand considered sensations suited to each place of use.

Reconsidering the Brand Image with a Signature Perfume in 2026

On January 9, 2026, Flora Notis released Iconic Bloom Eau de Parfum, its first signature fragrance embodying the brand’s vision. Perfumes themselves had been offered since 2018; the new creation was positioned as a work symbolizing the brand.

Around this time, the brand also reconsidered how it was communicated to users in order to strengthen its presence as a fragrance brand. Kyoko Koikeda, who took charge of this work, joined KOSÉ in 2007 and worked in sales, then moved to a PR company before taking responsibility for Flora Notis PR from 2019. In July 2026, Koikeda became a marketing planner. This work connects people’s lives with the brand from a position different from that of the perfumer creating the scents.

A questionnaire for CLASSY. readers and a roundtable with nine people explored how they used fragrance and perceived the brand. Some who had felt that the Jill Stuart name made it seem too young for them responded positively to the scents when they actually tried them. Koikeda sought to use this gap between name-related preconceptions and impressions gained through experience to inform future expression and points of contact.

There is refined glamour, but also an independent sense of cool.
Kyoko Koikeda

These were the two elements Koikeda perceived in CLASSY. and described as overlapping with the brand’s image. Retaining the delicacy of flowers while communicating fragrances that can reach adults in their everyday lives, this was a turning point in testing that identity against specific users’ voices.

The Brand’s Commitments

Changing the Texture for Each Floral Fragrance

A defining feature of Flora Notis is extending differences in fragrance into differences in touch. From launch, body oils, body milks, and hand creams varied from smooth lightness to a moist, rich feel.

In the current body-care and hand-care ranges, too, Floral Green is designed for a light feel, while Rich Camellia has the most richly moisturizing feel. Selection involves not only the image of the scent but also the season, skin condition, and the texture someone wants to touch that day. It is a way of considering fragrance and the skin experience together for each flower.

The brand also proposes layering the same floral world through care with an oil, the feel of a milk, and the diffusion of a perfume. Different ways of using the products bring impressions of the same flower into daily life.

Combining Delicacy and Strength in Iconic Bloom

Iconic Bloom was composed by Gabriela Chelariu, a Romanian-born perfumer based in New York. With pink rose at the center, she sought to capture the freshness and delicacy of the moment flowers bloom while creating a strong, memorable fragrance that lasts.

To achieve this, she emphasized a balance between softness and presence. She composed a fresh floral layering rose with dewy magnolia and muguet, while also seeking a silky texture like petals enveloping the skin. The creation considers both the lightness of fresh flowers and a perfume’s lingering impression.

Turkish Damask rose (in Japanese) absolute was selected as a principal material. An absolute is a concentrated fragrance material obtained through processes that include solvent extraction. Rather than simply listing flower names, the composition places the depth and warmth of rose at its core.

With naturally derived alcohol and fragrance ingredients, Iconic Bloom was designed with a natural-origin index of 96%, calculated under ISO 16128 including water. This figure concerns the origin of the product as a whole, not only the proportion of its fragrance materials.

Its inspiration includes “flower meditation”: looking at flowers, touching them, and directing attention to their scent. The brand describes this as time spent engaging with one’s inner self through the senses. The idea brings together, within a single perfume, the act of paying attention to flowers in daily life.

A Flower-Drop Bottle Inspired by an Art Collection

The Iconic Bloom bottle was inspired by the art collection Jill loves and designed to evoke a drop from a flower. Its rounded glass shoulders feature a gold plate engraved with the logo.

The cap combines gold-colored knurling with fine vertical grooves and cutting that suggests overlapping petals. The form brings the clear lines of metal and cut surfaces together with the soft outline of flowers.

Rather than simply turning Jill’s love of flowers into a flower-shaped ornament, the design translates it into the outline of a drop, the light of materials, and the texture of fragrance. The 2018 proposition of bringing flowers into everyday life also leads to this symbolic bottle.