‘I’m braver. And I don’t suffer fools’: Jo Malone’s sweet life
SHE’S ‘NOT MEANT TO BE HERE’, BUT IT WAS THE DARK TIMES – AND HEAVEN SCENT TALENT – THAT MADE HER
Jo Malone is trying to imagine what Australia would smell like if it was a fragrance. “I remember coming once and trying to capture the jacaranda tree which doesn’t smell at all but I have something called synesthesia which means that I can smell colour,” she says ahead of a trip Down Under.
“Australia would be the smell of salty air, it would be like the Cobalt Patchouli perfume we’ve done which is blue skies and wonderful sexy notes and there would be citrus because of the lifestyle. I’d also put a bit of vetiver and fig in because of the dryness and tenacity of those ingredients.”
Jo Malone London may be a brand you spot at duty free or the iconic lime, basil and mandarin fragrance you recognise on a friend, but the woman who has spent more than 30 years as a perfumier is as layered and compelling as any of her scents.
Her eponymous brand, which she sold to Estee Lauder in 1999, and her own brand Jo Loves, which has a store in Sydney’s Strand Arcade, may be synonymous with luxurious perfumes and dreamy candles, but the 60-yearold who left school at 14 to look after her ailing mother is as down-toearth as they come.
In fact when I ask Malone whether she writes down “artisan”, “perfumier” or “businesswoman” on her arrivals card – she’ll be coming to Australia from her home in Dubai – she laughs.
“To be honest my husband Gary helps me fill out forms because I’m severely dyslexic. But I would say shopkeeper because I love being a shopkeeper and it puts people at their ease.”
If dyslexia made school challenging, the girl who grew up selling her dad’s paintings in the local market so the family could buy groceries would face greater trials ahead. Just four years after Malone sold her business to Estee Lauder for “undisclosed millions”, where she stayed on as creative director, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and told she had just nine months to live. Her first round of chemotherapy didn’t work. It was a deeply distressing time for the couple, who by then had a young son. But Malone persevered.
“I am not meant to be here so I’ve got to make every minute count,” she says, 21 years after those hard days.
“I took it step by step, I would never have got through it had it not been for the amazing Evelyn Lauder and my doctor and the love of my husband and son. I put my life in their hands and said: ‘I want to live more than anything’.”
For a while, Malone completely lost her sense of smell.
“It was tough, I lost my hair, half my body was gone. It takes you back to the bare bones of who you really are and I realised that I had to rebuild myself.”
After leaving the Lauder company, where she’d worked as creative director, to focus on her health, Malone was stymied by a five-year non-compete clause, but it’s from those years of challenge and contemplation that Jo Loves was born, originally launching with just four scents.
“I came back creatively differently,” she says.
“I never suffered fools but I definitely don’t suffer them now. I’m braver, I create with such a strong identity now.”
In a saturated fragrance marketplace, she remains unbothered by competition. “I’m not threatened by someone else’s creativity, in fact I think we can all learn from each other,” she says.
As she prepares to fly to Australia where she’ll meet fans at a pop-up store in Pitt Street Mall this month. she will also be spritzing the perfume she made purely for herself. Jo by Jo Loves focuses on her enduring love affair with grapefruit with the freshness paired with notes of bitter orange, lime and spearmint. As she says, it tells the story of her life. And all these years after she first started selling bath oils out of a flat where she and her husband and business partner Gary slept on a mattress on the floor, Malone is more grateful than ever for what life has thrown at her.
“Sometimes Gary comes and pinches me and says, ‘pinch yourself, look at the life we’re living’. If I had my time again I wouldn’t change anything because I wouldn’t be the person I am now and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
Jo Malone will be at a pop-up store in Pitt Street Mall between noon and 1pm on April 22 before a ticketed high tea at Myer in Melbourne on April 24. Tickets from Eventbrite