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The fragrances we encounter throughout our lives are more than fleeting sensations; they are profound markers of memory, emotion, and identity. A single whiff can summon long-forgotten moments, evoke the warmth of a cherished embrace or transport us to places etched deep in our hearts.
For Jo Malone CBE, fragrance goes further than just a smell – it’s an olfactive biography. “When I create fragrance, I’m telling people’s stories through scent. Our sense of smell is the most powerful, and its own chapter is now being written about just how powerful it can be. Smells hit the deeper hippocampus of the brain and help people recall memories faster than anything else – they’re even used to help bring people out of comas. If scent can do that, imagine what else it can do.
Here, Malone takes us on an olfactory journey through the key scents that have defined her life. From the sweet nostalgia of childhood aromas to the family smells that have shaped her creations, these are her scents of purpose.
The scent that makes me feel like a child again is…
Golden Virginia tobacco, which my father smoked, and the smell of linseed oil, which I used to clean his makeup brushes. We had proper English roses growing in our garden, and in the summer it was the apricot-like smell of the roses mixed with the wood varnish people used to paint their fences. When the sun hit it, it was very woody and very earthy, and I loved that smell.
The scent that saw me through my teenage years was…
juniper skin tonic, because my job was making it, and the smell of my parents and our home. My mum wore Ma Griffe by Carven, and my dad wore Christian Dior Eau Sauvage. Also the smell of toast and all the essences of living in a council house. Toast was a big thing because it was cheap. We used to have a coal fire, and I loved that smell during the winter. All of those wonderful smells remind me of being a teenager.
The scent of someone I’ve lost is…
Lily of The Valley, which my grandmother wore. She had the tiniest bottle that would last her a lifetime because it was so precious. She made her own clothes as though she was Coco Chanel, and she could cook like a dream. She used to make apricot madeleines, so you’d walk into the kitchen to the smell of honey, apricot madeleines and the sound of her humming. She had a big Aga, and she’d take the madeleines out and lay them on the cooling rack, and I could smell a hint of cologne on her. She was always immaculately dressed and the kindest, most amazing grandmother. She was a real East End wife, there to provide for her family.
I’d also say the smell of rosemary, lavender, and camphor because that’s what Countess Lubatti – the woman who taught me how to make face creams – smelt of as we were always in the laboratory. She made a wonderful tonic from rosemary, and lavender went into every face cream she made. Camphor was a great cleanser – I still, to this day, make my own camphor cream to clean my face. She had a face powder that smelt like sandalwood, and she was always in a long white lab coat, fishnet tights, high heels, and blood red lipstick. Whenever I smell camphor, my mind immediately goes to her.
The scent that got me addicted to fragrance is…
the smell of Grasse. The first time I went there was way before we could afford to stay anywhere fancy, so our hotel was cheap as chips and not very nice. We walked up the hill for lunch, and as we walked back down, you could smell rose and orange blossom in the air. I remember it as though it was yesterday. We got to a little square with a flower market and a lovely little brasserie – all terracotta walls and turquoise shutters – and had steak frites and rosé wine. I sat there and just fell in love with the smell of everything. The garden of the perfume museum was full of orange blossom trees, and the air was so heavy with fragrance that as I clapped my hands, the orange blossoms and roses just lifted. That was the moment I fell in love. I think that was my calling.
The scent that makes me feel safe and comforted is…
Pomelo, which was my first creation for Jo Loves. When [my son] Josh was seven, our house burned down and we lost everything. It was really traumatic, especially for Josh, as we watched everything burn. We lived between hotels before renting a house, and Josh hated it. It had no soul. He cried so much and said to me, “I just want to go home”. One day I told him to go to school and promised him it would feel like home when he came back. I ran to the office, got five kilos of Pomelo, and washed the entire house in it – the floor, the sofa, every bed, every towel. He walked in that evening and said, “It smells like home”. To this day, our house is still washed in Pomelo: I wash the floors with it, I spray the bedsheets with it, and we always have Pomelo candles burning. Whenever I’m back in London and I turn the key in the lock, I close my eyes, stand there for a moment, and take in that feeling of home. It’s a smell that makes me feel safe and that always reminds me of family.
The scent that transports me to my favourite place in the world is…
Sunkissed Orange – a fragrance I created here in Dubai during Ramadan. I made it about three years ago and have done nothing with it yet. There are only 40 bottles of it in the world, but it’s very dear to me. When I first moved here, I’d sit on the beach and watch the sunrise and the sunset. I knew that when the sun rose, it was opportunity, and when the sun set, it was celebration. Sunkissed Orange is the smell of a new day, of new beginnings. It reminds me of how precious life is, and how every day we have the opportunity to ask ourselves, “What if I could?”. It’s so fragile and yet so strong. It has oud, but it’s not heavy or smoky. It sits right under the base, holding the yuzu and the pepper. It reminds you to believe in who you are and to believe in your dreams. I’m living my dream here. I love that you don’t need an invite to sit at the table. If you see a stool, just pull it up, sit down, and you’ll be welcome. I don’t know anywhere else in the world that does that. So, I feel very privileged, and my blue office (gestures out to the ocean) in Dubai is my favourite place.
The scent of my first love is…
my husband, Gary. I had boyfriends before, but he is the love of my life. He wore Loewe Esencia when I first met him, and he was a big swimmer, so he always smelled slightly of chlorine. I used to love how in the summer, when I got into the car, it smelt like a lemony cologne he wore. He never drove with shoes on, he was always barefoot, and he’d have his little gray shorts on. We’d have gone swimming and he would just splash this cologne onto him and I would close my eyes and think it was the most magical, wonderful smell. Today he loves Cobalt Patchouli & Cedar – another masculine, Mediterranean cologne.
The scent that got me through a tough time is…
a mouthwash called Biotene, which I know is a weird one [laughs]. I lost my sense of smell towards the end of chemo, but at the beginning, every smell was so intense and made me feel incredibly sick. Poor Gary couldn’t even wear deodorant. But that was one of the smells – along with lemon and grapefruit – that helped my nauseousness. Another one was a eucalyptus body wash that I used as it didn’t make me itch. I lost all my hair – my eyebrows, eyelashes, everything. I couldn’t even smell food, so those clean, fresh smells really got me through. In a funny way, so did the smell of Josh’s bedroom. When he was little, I used to spray his pyjamas with a very light orange flower, so he always knew it was time to go to bed. Every night the delicate scent from his cot gave me the will to survive and to live.
The scent I wish I could bottle forever is…
the memories of moments with Josh. When he went to Harvard university, he’d never lived away from home before, and suddenly he was off to live in another country. We flew to Boston, and when the morning came where we had to drop him off, I was beside myself. I remember him walking through the gates, pulling his cases behind him. He never looked back – he was so just excited. Eventually he said, “Bye, mum”, and that was it. I stood there until I couldn’t smell his cologne any longer. At the time, he wore Ebony Wood, which I created for Zara. It was 25 minutes of bottling all those memories, all the smells, everything from his stinky fencing kit to his clean sheets to Sunday lunches. I saw that chapter ending. When I got back to the house in London, I slept in his bed for six weeks, holding his jumper. When he was born, he smelled of the warmest amber and sandalwood – this earthiness that I can smell right now. It doesn’t last for long, so it reminds you to treasure the moment – that’s the beauty of it. It’s the smell of life and love. Those are the things that I would capture.
The scent of heartbreak is…
an orchestra of notes, from violet to jasmine to mimosa. I haven’t had my heart broken many times, but when I realised that I couldn’t use my name anymore, or thought I couldn’t carry on creating fragrance, that was when I was at my lowest. But this Beethoven symphony of notes I’d never used before screamed at me saying, “You can’t quit, you can’t walk away. Pick me for your last one. You can’t stop because you haven’t used me yet.” It was heartbreaking, but I’m not heartbroken now. I found my strength through that symphony.
The scent I want people to associate me with forever is…
the smell of hope – of empowering people to believe that they can live their dream. I’m 63, I’ve got enough money, and I want to give back. What is the smell of hope? What is the smell of peace? I want people to remember me as a woman who had her feet on the ground. Not grand or posh, but very down to earth. Who made her own dreams happen and wanted others to believe they can too. I have no idea what that smell is – maybe that will be one of my last things to accomplish. If not that, then the smell of my Sunday lunch – I make an amazing roast chicken [laughs].
ART: Kimberlee Kessler
“Scents of purpose” IS PUBLISHED IN THE 16th EDITION OF GRAZIA Middle East. ORDER YOUR COPY HERE.
