Jo Malone: don't stick to your habits !

The weeks around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are, just like Valentine’s Day and Christmas, high days for the perfume industry. Are you planning to give someone a perfume as well? Well, here is some advice. Don’t stick to your or their habits when it comes to buying perfumes.

Text Anja Van Der Borght

A quick peek at what’s in their bathroom is a conditio sine qua non if you want to offer someone a perfume. “A perfume is so personal that you can hardly impose your own taste on someone else,” says Pablo Perez, director of the Haute Parfumerie department at Senteurs d’Ailleurs in Brussels. “We therefore advise against buying perfumes for someone else. Unless, of course, you know someone is crazy about jasmine. In that case, you run less risk, but still…. While one person may prefer a soft or subtle note of jasmine, another may want a strong and present one. Most of our customers almost always buy a perfume for themselves. Those who to offer a fragrant gift should rather opt for candles, interior design fragrances, bath products, … or perfumes that you can use for layering like the ones from Jo Malone.”

Layering technique
With certain fragrances that involve a different way of perfuming you hardly can’t go wrong. British perfume house Jo Malone, for example, is known for its layering technique that is combining different perfumes to create your own unique scent. If you buy a perfumed body cream or cologne with jasmine as a gift, but it is just not strong enough for the reciever, then the (un)lucky person can go to the shop and buy an extra product and create a stronger fragrance customised to his/her taste. Probably one of the reasons why Jo Malone has become so popular. Today, you will find a Jo Malone corner in many perfumeries from April to Senteurs d’Ailleurs in Belgium.

The kind of perfume that shouts out that there are other wonderful things than the classics that you always wear and that you think have become your identity.

Vanilla for dessert
It happens to be also Jo Malone, we recently had had an incredible experience with. On a quiet rather cold spring evening in the Lippenslaan in Knokke, a young couple passed my partner and me. I had hardly noticed them myself, but my friend immediately captured the lady’s perfume and told me he found it smelling deliciously. I looked back, hesitated for a moment because the couple was already at the next traffic light, but then I ran after them. “Sorry to bother you”, I addressed myself to the girl, “may I ask what perfume you are wearing, it smells great!”. “Vetiver & Golden Vanilla from the Cologne Intense line by Jo Malone”, the young girl replied clearly flattered. Proud of the result, as if I had just won a trophy, I walked back to my partner. Reluctantly also, because wood and amber, vetiver and vanilla, … are not exactly my favourite perfume ingredients. I am more the type that loves white flowers, orange blossom and musk. Although I know a lot of ladies are fans of vanilla, I find it more for cakes and desserts.

Reinvent yourself
The next day, we went back to the Lippenslaan in Knokke and I tried out the Vetiver & Golden Vanilla Cologne Intense by Jo Malone in the April store. First I put in on a scent strip and sniffed it. Delightful! Then I sprayed it on my wrist and a few minutes later on my scarf, finally behind my ears as well. For the next three days, I was walking around enveloped in a wonderful perfume, the kind that makes me alert, that makes me feel sexy. The kind of perfume that shouts out that there are other wonderful things than the classics that you always wear and that you think have become your identity. It is as if I had reinvented myself with this new fragrance. Today I still wear it and I feel different, renewed, younger, sexy, … it is as if I am living life differently with my new acquisition. So don’t stick to your perfume habits and change them once in a while. And the next time someone with a great scent passes you by, ask him/her what they are wearing. That way, not only will you be complimenting someone, you won’t have to spend the night wondering what wonderful aroma that person was wearing and how it could change your life too.