I love Rose Jam, I think one of the reasons that many folks don't like it is because it actually smells of real roses and not the platonic ideal of roses that we usually see in perfumery.
Most "rose" notes in modern perfumery are made of a melange of materials that each mimic a different facet of what we think of as rose. In 2019, these "rose" notes seem to be heavily dominated by materials that in isolation smell of raspberry and strawberry and are backed up by aromachemicals that smell of basil, clove and cedar for spice and freshness. Et Voila! You've got a "rose" note.
What Lush is doing here is not what I've outline above. They've aimed at a different idea of rose. Rose Jam is the smell of real crushed rose petals, sugared, macerated and reduced into something more than the sum of its parts. This is honeyed, heady, bodily, tangy, warm, verging at times on spiced apple and soft lemon. It doesn't smell like rose water because it was never meant to smell like rose water, it was meant to smell like a caloric dessert from a hot climate.
As others have mentioned the projection is phenomenal and the base of Rose Jam is a warm vanillic rose. Nothing about this scent was meant to be anything less than opulent so it is not for the shy.
