We link our identities to many things — our career, family, pursuit of creativity or a search for purpose. For Jo Malone, being one of the world’s best perfumers and the creativity that comes with the job is her identity.
If Malone’s job as a perfumer is her identity, and it’s like a drug she can’t let go of, it’s no wonder her scents are intoxicating.
But the story of Malone, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Prince of Wales for her contributions to the fragrance industry in 2018, is one of losing herself and finding her way back, a cancer diagnosis and losing a best friend. Malone’s best friend is her former eponymous brand Jo Malone London, which she left in 2006. But, today, she is better, stronger, and channelling all of her creativity into Jo Loves, her most creative fragrance venture yet.
“The fact that I did it once, people saw only a part of my character,” says Malone. “To do it twice, or a third time more creatively is what I want my legacy to be,” she said during a recent visit to Johannesburg.
Malone marvels at the idea of bottling the city’s purple jacaranda-lined streets for Jo Loves. This is when Malone’s synaesthesia kicks in, a neurological condition where one sense stimulates others senses simultaneously. She can see a colour, meet somebody and get inspired by the scent that emanates neurologically.
“My senses of colour and scent are muddled,” explains Malone. “The colour white is pomelo and stripes smell like vetiver, it’s like magic.”
During an elephant conservation trip in Durban, Malone noted that elephants have a wonderful smell of warm smoky amber.
One wouldn’t know that Jo Malone divorced her eponymous brand more than 15 years ago after chemotherapy caused her to lose her sense of smell.
When walking through the halls of Hyde Park Corner, the Jo Malone London store holds more than sensational fragrances; it’s a story of how a young working class girl became a CBE, started a brand favoured by royals and signed a non-compete agreement with the brand she founded.
Five-year lockout
Jo Malone London was sold to cosmetic conglomerate The Estée Lauder Companies in 1999, which helped Malone scale the brand globally, after running a single boutique in London.
“I looked after every royal in Europe, top creative, musicians and actresses,” says Malone. “Once, someone ordered 100 bottles of product but I didn’t know where we’d find the money to make 100 bottles.”
But with all its power, money and resources, Malone says Estée Lauder could not replicate what she had started, nor the creativity she injects into Jo Loves today. In 2002, during her Estée Lauder era, Malone was diagnosed with breast cancer and the Lauder family connected her with specialists in New York City.
Malone hadn’t told anyone the chemotherapy had taken away her sense of smell. She thought she’d never smell again nor do what she loves — make fragrance.
“I couldn’t stay as the person I was and determined to walk away,” Malone said on the How I Built This (HIBT) podcast. “I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life because I realised it wasn’t a job, it was my best friend.”
In leaving Estée Lauder, Malone lost her company and her identity by signing the five-year non-compete agreement.
“Those five years were a lockout. I was so sad; all I wanted to do was create a fragrance. It wasn’t a business or a career, it was my best friend,” says Malone.
Scents of identity
Towards the end of this lockout, in 2011, Malone woke up one morning and realised she could smell like she’s never smelt before. It was a moment of revelation and of anxiety.
“I wanted to retail again, package again, work with a team again. I felt better, stronger, and different as a person,” says Malone.
By signing away Jo Malone London, she had signed away the use of her full name in the cosmetics industry.
“I am Jo Malone. I had to ask, ‘what do you mean I’m not Jo?’” she says.
Malone realised she wanted to start again. With her son Josh and husband Gary at the kitchen table, they started brainstorming a name for her new fragrance brand.
“Why don’t you call it Jo Loves? Fragrance loves you and you love it,” says Josh. Ten years later, Josh jokes, “Shouldn’t I get royalties for this?”
This was when Malone’s entrepreneurial sense that she calls the “heart beat” started going again.
“I love business and I love making money. Not just because you’re making money, but the things you can do with it for yourself and for others. That feeling of achievement from creating something and taking it around the world is a feeling that I love, and I wanted to do that again,” says Malone.
Fast forward 10 years to 2023 in South Africa, a doctor specialising in neurodivergence tells Malone she is four times more likely to respond to a situation emotionally and suffer anxiety, and to use creativity to get through it.
“Creativity will tell you when she’s ready and when to stop,” says Malone. “I respect the currency of creativity more than ever. That creativity is yours and only you can raise the amount of creativity in your [creativity] bank account.”
Jo Loves
Jo Loves is born out of Malone’s new-found desire for adventure centred on the things she loves. She also loves the finer things in life such as a drink at the bar of a Four Seasons Hotel, villas in Thailand and people watching in Paris.
“Life inspires me, I want that feeling of adventure,” says Malone. “It’s really important for me to do something big. This time the adventure didn’t find me, so I had to go out and look for it.”
But Jo Loves wasn’t a straight journey to the top. It was a struggle for two years and at times Malone regretted building the business that was bleeding money, had no sales and nobody knew she was there. She had sprinted into that arena thinking she could go back to where she’d left.
Jo Malone London is ubiquitous around the world with crisp black-and-white boutiques. But Jo Loves changes the way people think of scent; it is in the form of a paint brush for the body. The idea came from the need to create and patent a unique fragrance experience.
The Fragrance Paint Brushes are a ticket to the imagination that says, “we are going to do it differently”, says Malone.
At a 2017 Women’s Wear Daily summit, executives from some of Malone’s largest competitors — Shiseido and Yves Saint Laurent — said, “That’s genius.”
Malone says: “Each pen writes a story. Pink Vetiver is sitting at a cafe along the Champs Elysée in Paris watching French women in kitten heels and a tweed Chanel skirt.
“It’s my entrepreneurial eyes to disrupt creatively. Yes, these global corporations are functional but struggle to find the heartbeat of something,” she says. “An entrepreneur can find that heartbeat in the tiniest little corner over there and says ‘let’s go find it’.’”Jo Loves is available for pre-order online at arcstore.co.za to be delivered from 27 February. It will be available to buy online at arcstore.co.za from 27 February and available in stores from 6 March.