Jo Malone Archives | Page 6 of 6

Have a London Lark and cavort through London-town with Jo Malone Basil & Neroli Cologne

October 14, 2016 Paris B 7 Comments

When the announcement of the new Jo Malone Basil & Neroli Cologne was first made, I had a little laugh over it. It was about the time that I had just started my little basil growing experiment (still going strong, thank you for asking!) and I was big on everything basil. A perfume in the scent was perfect to round it all up!

Interestingly, the brand launched this with the rather vague descriptive phrase “A London Lark”, intending to depict a fashionably fun London. A ‘lark’ as I’m sure you realise is rather like a jaunt or a frolic or caper – all words that have fallen out of use in daily English, rather unfortunately. I highly doubt they meant to refer to a little brown bird LOL! 😛

The launch did bring to my mind a little hint of Camden Town – a little trippy and a little eccentric. For me, London is one of 3 things – loutish, proper or eccentric. Basil & Neroli kind of falls into the last category 😛

I take a short trip to the dark side with the Dark Amber & Ginger Lily Cologne Intense at the Jo Malone Cologne Intense launch in Malaysia

January 27, 2016 Paris B 4 Comments

I first experienced the popular Jo Malone fragrances after a flight – weird right? I know! But in-flight duty free was where I first picked up a sampler pack of popular Jo Malone fragrances, and discovered the art of fragrance layering. It was fun, and I enjoyed discovering new ways of wearing their scents. If you can find one of these sampler packs, pick it up – it’s worth the discovery.

But the one “problem” I’d always had was that Jo Malone scents tended to be quite “pretty”. It is the favourite of beauty bloggers (the bottles photograph well alongside iPhones and Macbooks and peonies) and the scents tended to be light and floral. They are colognes after all, and while some scents last longer than others (Pomegranate Noir, how I love thee!) they are fairly fleeting.

Well, until now!

Quite a while ago, 2010 if I’m not mistaken, Jo Malone London launched a new range called Cologne Intense. As the name implies, these are heavier, stronger, more intense fragrances when compared to their regular white label range.

Befitting of the name and the impression it invokes, the new range comes in black bottles, that are at once sleek and heavy in appearance and impression. The range now comprises 7 scents, and are now available here in Malaysia. I had the opportunity to take a sniff at the scents during their media launch quite recently, so I thought I’d share my overview impressions of the Cologne Intense range. Do bear in mind that I’m no perfume connoisseur! 😉

Coming in September: Jo Malone Peony & Blush Suede Cologne – A pretty feminine scent

July 27, 2013 Paris B 17 Comments

I’d been having lots of fun playing with my Jo Malone sampler set when I learned not too long ago that in September, there will be a new fragrance launched – Peony & Blush Suede.

Fascinating. Does suede have a smell other than it just being leather? I was quite intrigued by it and took a healthy sniff of it at the preview launch a little while ago. Not available yet folks! Look for it in stores in September.

The thing that hit me was how floral it was.

I don’t know what peonies smell like and I won’t pretend to. I don’t know what suede smells like either because the last suede item I own has fallen apart. Suede doesn’t hold up as well as regular treated leather, for me. But to me, suede will smell of leather. So the idea here is for the scent to open up with a sweet floral and dry down to that of a musky leather.

Sadly, it didn’t smell like that on me when I spritz it on my skin. That’s the thing about fragrances you know. The description can sell it to you, but then you spritz it on your skin and you go “Whaa…??? What was THAT?!”

Fragrance Combining: That “A-ha!” moment when Jo Malone fragrances start to make “scents”

March 17, 2013 Paris B 45 Comments

Have you ever wondered “I like this scent but I wish it could be a bit more floral” and thought about layering one scent over another? For many standalone perfumes, this doesn’t work very well (I’ve tried with varying degrees of disaster) but I learnt (by accident) about a brand that does encourage this fragrance combining and this brand is Jo Malone.

jo malone fragrance combining set

Its another one of those brands that I picked up on through reading blogs. Bloggers just don’t know how much of an enabler they are but the fact is, its so easy to get sucked in sometimes that its scary. Is it any wonder that brands now turn to to bloggers to build hype? 😛 (This isn’t a brand built hype by the way – I wish it was then I could tell you it was gifted, but its not 😛 )

Jo Malone – a fragrance brand I’d come across over and over in the past few years and my interest was piqued. The first time I managed to take a sniff was at the store in Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. I couldn’t quite understand what the SA was saying so I spritz on some scents to try, smiled politely and left. I like to let scents develop directly on my skin before deciding if I want to buy a fragrance, so I rarely, if ever, buy a perfume outright. I decided I wasn’t quite taken by the scents.

The next time I sniffed it was in a store in Hong Kong. This time, there was no SA so I didn’t know what I was doing. So again, I left empty handed. And then, on my flight back from Hong Kong, while flipping through the duty free shopping booklet, my eye fell on this set – the Jo Malone Fragrance Combining Set. It was rather pricey, I remember – something like US$95 or thereabouts but I’d get 6 mini bottles of fragrance in a box. I thought it was a good way to sample the brand.

Lest you think you have to jet set off to the unknown to take a whiff of Jo Malone scents, take heart. Jo Malone now has a store at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur (Fashion Avenue) 😉 I then learnt when I opened the box, what I found unique in Jo Malone scents – they are made to be combined and layered so you can create your signature scent. A bespoke scent, as it were. What fun! 😀 Have you tried this and do you have a favourite Jo Malone scent or combination?

Incidentally, there is a new limited edition range called “Sugar & Spice” of which I have some pictures below. I’ll tell you a little about them too.

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