JO MALONE

What Have We Here, Jo Malone?

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Having only just rapturised about the Jo Malone Red Rose Home Candles, I have been presented with this:

Hmm, interesting! The elegant box, a signature of the brand, has had its colours swapped: black box instead of cream, with cream accents and cream-coloured ribbon… Is this a new thing?

Yup, sure is. The Jo Malone Home Collection launches in April of this year, and I should probably be waiting to write about it, but I simply can’t contain myself.

I love home stuff, and when I’m in the US, I could watch HGTV for hours and hours and hours {and do.} I already love JM candles, as I’ve said, so the addition of anything to this line is going to make me want to curl up on the sofa and breath in the scent-y goodness.

Okay, I’m looking at the list of new elements in the range, and may wait to revisit closer to the time, but look at these!

These are the Limited Edition Scent Surround™ Sachets (€25/£20), three to a gorgeously designed box, and are infused with the world famous Lime Basil & Mandarin scent. I used to do a line in lavender sachets, which was a bit matronly, but I don’t know, I read it in a book or something, and there weren’t any real alternatives. Now, though! I can lash one of these in the knickers drawer and just exult in my LB&M scented pants.

The Scent Surround™ line also includes Limited Edition Drawer Liners, Room Sprays, and the thing I am most dying to test, the Diffuser. It’s one of those things, with the sticks? Only in LB&M, Red Roses and Pomegranate Noir.

Since I’m moving house, I’ll be saving all this up for when I get settled in. I think they will go some way to helping me nest in even faster than usual.

 

♥Day: Smelling Good is Its Own Reward

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Yeah, well, you know what? Every day really is Valentine’s Day, for me at least, because I love fragrance and I love smelling good.

I keep meaning to investigate the psychology of scent, to see what the opinions are. Does one spritz habitually out of low self esteem {ooh, I am so stinky I must mask it} or out high self esteem {I am a beautiful flower, come and admire me}? I don’t ‘do’ signature scents, I mean, Jo Malone’s Pomegranate Noir is something that people recognise as ‘me’, but I think I use scent more as an indicator of how I feel on the day. There are days when I’m feeling zesty and youthful, and days when I’m feeling deep and mysterious. Sweet and sexy day? Karma by Lush. Sentimental? Coco by Chanel.

Right, so: I’ve gotten my hands on a couple things that are in the deep, mysterious, and sexy category. Those who favour the zesty and clean and sexy stuff I’ll refer to this post.

Perhaps it’s simply because I am easily led — perhaps I am a package designer/marketeer’s dream girl — but could there be anything sexier than Emporio Armani Black Carat for Her (€61.50) and for Him (€53.50)? I ask you. And this may go back to the ‘easily led’ part, but they smell sexy too. Especially the one for Him. I just had this flash, this mental image, of me running around town spritzing dudes, just so I can smell how yum this must be on a guy. I wonder if that behaviour is actionable…

Just for the ladies, Thierry Mugler’s Alien (€30) is terribly appealing, and manages to combine some dark and sexy bits with a floral finish. I always associate flowers with light scents, but I don’t think that’s always the rule. Must also chase up that perfumery lesson… Anyway, love the bottle! It does look like a wee alien! Adorbs!

Actually, perhaps once I take that lesson, I can maybe get a gig writing the copy for fragrances? It looks like fun! It seems to me to be the same as writing about wine — about which I also know nothing, except that some is white and some is red and some is somewhere in the middle. I was googling, based on personal experience, a lovely — I mean, manly — fragrance for a dude, and remembered how much I liked Eau des Baux by L’Occitane (€44). I love the copy on the site generally, but this description really rang my bell:

In Provence, the knights from the village of Les Baux chose the cypress tree as a symbol of their strength and honor, and a bright star in the sky as their guiding force. In honor of their courage, L’OCCITANE has created a sensual and mysterious blend of cypress and incense named Eau de Baux.

Fantastic! And the fragrance is, too: earthy and musky and masculine. It is a bit risky, purchasing fragrance for another, and especialy if yer man doesn’t normally wear eau de toilette… but maybe you can get wee samples or something? Or employ my strategy as outlined above… or maybe not.

Sweet Sixteen: Jo Malone Body Créme

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Everything about Jo Malone feels rich: the beautiful cream-and-black branding, the boxes, the ribbons, and most particularly, the heavy glass tub that contains the luxurious body créme.

There is absolutely nothing like the Jo Malone Body Créme. I don’t like all the scents — and frankly, I wouldn’t blame you feeling completely suspicious of me if I did — but the ones that I do, I adore. Unconditionally. Without reservation.

Lime Basil & Mandarin. Pomegranate Noir. Amber & Lavender! Oh, I forgot about that last one. I went to swap the places of LM&B and PN, but I can’t. I don’t think I can. Can I? No, not possible. Even though I layer PN with pleasure, and everyone knows what it is, and I don’t mind everyone recognizing it, because it is so delightfully sensuous, and something of a signature scent for me … I still can’t put it first, because it wasn’t my first.

Lime Basil & Mandarin. I had no idea that this Sweet Sixteen was going to be so nostalgic, but I have just gone off into a mental video memory of the first time I got a whiff of the stuff. I had been hanging with some pals, enjoying the bubbling hot tub at the SPORTSCO Leisure Centre in Ringsend {why do I remember it as the ESB gym?} and then after repairing to the changing room, one of the women passed around the body crème. Its heavy glass jar immediately communicated its splendour, and an obsession was born.

I had to have it. I had to have it for myself. I didn’t care that I was suddenly smelling that scent everywhere I turned; rather, it became the clarion call of a little club of ladies who knew what was what when it came to self care, and about splurging a mad amount of money of a thing that didn’t last for an appreciable amount of time.

Ah, now! That last bit is not so true. Because it so well-crafted, you need less than you think to enfold yourself in the fragrant goodness that is a Jo Malone body crème. So all of us who were amongst the vanguard were less annoyed at smelling ourselves coming and going {oh, dear, that sounds nasty} and more keen to appreciate the savvy of our fellow Malonistas.

It’s like being a member of a club whose only agenda is to smell gorgeous. I consider myself to be a lifetime member, with honours.

€63/£48/$75