Jo Malone. It may as well be renamed ‘Quintessentially British Luxury Timeless Fragrance Land of Dreams’ – but Jo Malone is easier to write down on your Christmas wish-list.
I was first introduced to the brand when I was much younger. I had gone shopping with my dad to try to “find your mother a birthday present”. He has always been, and will always be, totally clueless when it comes to shopping for women. He is a big fan of buying kitchen utensils and bits of technology which always comes with the “I will teach you how to use it but we can share it darling” speech. Basically he is a typical male shopper. But we wandered into Jo Malone that day and walked out with a very successful birthday present in the shape of a big candle and some hand creams.
Since then, I have always been a fan of the brand, but thought that it was more of a ‘mummy’ brand, slightly too grown up for me & out of my normal high street price range. I just used to live my Jo Malone addiction vicariously through my mum’s birthday presents. (She now gets Jo Malone pieces every single year… It went down so well the first time that my dad has just stuck to getting her the same thing every year so she isn’t disappointed. Men.)
So – I was always a Jo Malone enthusiast but it wasn’t until I started blogging that I got totally infatuated with it. I was very kindly gifted my first, very own candle and that was it. I was hooked. It was my candle to burn as I chose, and since this moment I have collected quite the collection of GORGEOUS colognes, candles and body lotions. *insert princess crown emoji*.
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You can only image how delighted I was when I was invited down to the new-ish Jo Malone Regent Street Boutique to experience a mother-daughter hand massage and fragrance combining appointment. Unfortuantly my mum couldn’t get any time off work (which is such as a shame as she would have LOVED this – it is right up her street) so I took a gal’s next best thing to her mother – her Grandma.
My Grandma was SO excited. She has always found blogging baffling and doesn’t quite understand what I do on here, but when I told her that we had been invited for a luxurious morning of pampering she suddenly loved the idea of having a blogging granddaughter.
(Trying to explain to people what I do as a blogger is still challenging – even though it is getting more and more common, people still can’t quite understand. Even explaining it to my friends, that already understand all the modern day jargon such as hashtag, snapchatting, autocorrect and buffering, is hard enough- so explaining blogging and Instagram to my Grandma who doesn’t understand what an App is – has always been a bit of a struggle.
“So you are sending that photo from your phone to all your friends? And they can see it straight away?”
‘no no, I am just putting it up on my Instagram so it will show up on my friends news feeds’
“Its going in the news? From your phone? How brilliant!”)
We arrived at the boutique and it is quite possibly one of the most instagrammable places I have ever been. Just look at the chandelier and THAT flower bed. AND It smells ridiculously gorgeous in there too, as you would expect.
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| Stupid London traffic ruining my photo. |
One of each please…
…And if you could just pick this up and drop it off at my house that would be FAB.
I couldn’t have been prouder that she colour co-ordinated herself to the Jo Malone packaging. She is basically camouflaged.
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| Introducing her to the Snapchat Selfie. |
Then it was time for our hand massage – looking out over the (Hollister) ocean next door.
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| High Chair Goals |
Oh and of course, because Jo Malone is quintessentially British – tea was a must.
We started off with a fragrance combination session. Basically just an excuse to smell every single Jo Malone scent. So we went through all the different fragrances to try and find our perfect combination and which were our favourite notes in the different colognes. They were sprayed on those pieces of card (I am sure there is a posh word for them but I don’t know what that is) and then you smell two at a time, mixing and matching trying to find a combination that you really love.
What really surprised me, was that my Grandma and I chose the same two fragrance for our hand massage. Out of all the different scents, we picked the same two. Obviously good taste/sense of smell runs in the family.
Our two chosen fragrances were English Pear & Freesia and the Orange Blossom. Both are literally TO DIE FOR. I love citrusy scents (my mum absolutely hates them – so maybe its a good thing she couldn’t come). We both decided to have the Orange Blossom applied as a hand lotion/base note and then the English Pear & Freesia on top.
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| Still colour co-ordinated – babe. |
Whilst having a wander around afterwards – I fell totally in love with the coloured, personalised cologne lids. I mean – LOOK HOW CUTE THESE ARE.
They have so many different options to personalise your Jo Malone purchases in the Regent Street Boutique : Engraving, embossing, different coloured lids etc etc.
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I think that it is important to have rainbow coloured lids for your perfumes. For easy recognition, especially early in the morning, as the design for the bottles are the same.
Sometimes you need to be able to say to someone *cough* a man *cough* “Could you pass me the bottle with the organge lid” – rather than having the painfully slow conversation of, “Could you please pass me my Orange Blossom Jo Malone?”…which would result in this string on questions “Wait, what? Which one is that? Why do you have so many? What is the bottle like? How come they all have the same bottle? Which smell did you want again?”.
Also – how adorable is this engraving service. Nothing better than something being personalised.
And – for those of you who are even more of an avid collector than myself – you can get your own CASE of Jo Malone.
Also in the Regent Street Boutique, standing proud and centre stage, is the gorgeous Rare Teas Collection. How beautiful (and enormous) are these bottles – they only come in 175ml size. Because, why not? This new luxury tier of six colognes with its new bottle design (which kind of reminds me of the palace in Aladdin), smell AMAZING. Now, I would have assumed that tea is found in a lot of fragrances, because everyone loves tea. Well, apparently not. The Rares Teas collection is the FIRST collection to actually physically contain tea in it. And if I can’t be drinking it, I am sure going to love wearing it.
I know that bloggers are meant to like cute, pretty, dainty things. And don’t get me wrong, I do. But I can’t get over how much I love these big, solid bottles. I feel like these guys are like the security guards of the perfume world – they will stand there, protecting all your other perfumes from danger.
After I had had a proper snoop around the shop, fell in love with everything, purchased myself a pink bottle lid (I actually COULD NOT resist it), we headed home. Both my Grandma and I took home the products that we had used that day – the Orange Blossom hand creme and the English Pear and Freesia cologne, because we wanted to smell like this every single day. And as if that wasn’t enough, were were also given our own hand drawn boxes that are painted in store. They are beyond gorgeous. Total works of art I think. (scroll down to take a peak).
OH HEY NEW PINK LID. (And purple lid off my Orris & Sandlewood cologne.)
Isn’t she pretty in her new hat.
Let me also introduce you to another new addition to my Jo Malone Family. Nashi Blossom. If you are having problems working out which one it is – it is the one in the beyond funky – yes I said funky – polka dot bottle and lime green lid. I mean, it completely pops out at you. Which is exactly what is is meant to do. It has a top tasting note of lemon, a heart of Nashi blossom and a base of white musk. (I would absolutely not be able to tell you this information if I didn’t have the press release on my lap. My fragrance education is, shall we say, not quite at the professional level yet). But it is SO CUTE. The most perfect summer fragrance. All the citrus.
I was also kindly sent over a Rare Teas collection cologne. I have the darkest colour out of the six- the Golden Needle Tea. (The other options are Silver Needle Tea, Darjeeling Tea, Jade Leaf Tea, Oolong Tea, Midnight Black Tea). All Jo Malone fragrances are unisex, which I love, but I do think that this cologne is slightly on the masculine side for me. It has a very leathery, spice to it which is gorgeous but I think I would like to smell it on a man that I am snuggling up to, not necessarily on myself. I would love to invest in their Darjeeling Tea one – that sounds like my cup of tea (whahey). I say invest, as this collection isn’t cheap. One of these babies will set you back £240. It is 175ml though – it is going to last you forever and ever but it is a big hit to the bank balance at first. Just see it as a long term investment and you can convince yourself of anything.
And these are the hand painted boxes. ONE OF THEM GOT RAINED ON AND IT HAS BROKEN MY HEART. But again – what do you expect in London. I guess it just adds to the effect.
It is true – Jo Malone colognes and candles are on the slightly expensive side of life. But you are buying into a magical world of total scented luxury. And it is a world I am loving being part of and will stay a part of forever. And if you need any more convincing, just listen to their ribbon’s argument of why you should treat yourself – “Just Because”.
HUGE thank you to Jo Malone Regent Street Boutique for making my Grandma feel like a total Queen for the day. It is the most wonderful experience – highly recommend going in with a friend or family member and being pampered. You can also – wait for it – get your wedding scent. I have never heard of this but you can have a consultation to get a scent for your entire wedding. I will 100% do that when I get married. Yep. That is serious wedding goals – a Jo Malone scented wedding. You could get married in a shed and still feel like you were in heaven.
What is your favourite Jo Malone scent?
xx
Absolutely none of this blog post was sponsored by Jo Malone. It is purely sponsored by my love of Jo Malone and nice smelling things.