Image from the photo book 'Along the Hackney Canal' by East London based photographer Freya Najade ©

 

"Love is like wildflowers; It's often found in the most unlikely places." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

During the month of April 2017, Jo Malone creative director Céline Roux, perfumers Yann Vasnier and Louise Turner, along with other members of the Jo Malone team, took a field trip, an adventure of discovery, along willow draped English canals. Traveling by barge they found wildflowers and weeds hidden under weeping willows along the banks of the waterways.

Willow and Amber and Hemlock and Bergamot, photo used with permissiom by Jamie @ilikefragranceidojpk (thank you)

These plants, trees and flowers became the inspiration for five new limited editions colognes – The Jo Malone Wild Flowers and Weeds Collection: Willow and Amber, Lupin and Patchouli, Nettle and Wild Achillea,  Hemlock and Bergamot & Cade and Cedarwood.

 

Kindred Spirits, painting by Ashley B. Durand, 1849

As I spritz three of the Limited Edition colognes in the Jo Malone Wild Flowers and Weeds collection, Willow and Amber, Hemlock and Bergamot & Cade and Cedarwood, I can easily imagine 19th century American Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau having spirited conversations with Jo Malone's 21st century British and Continental artists and perfumers as they find themselves together in the natural world, on the banks of an English canal. 

Creative Director Céline Roux used with permission of Jo Malone

I can almost hear Emerson posing (and answering) his oft-quoted question: "What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." To which Céline Roux might reply "What I love about wild flowers and weeds is that the nature takes over, with no rhyme or reason – and makes things unexpectedly beautiful."

Indeed, with the Jo Malone Wild Flowers and Weeds collection Céline Roux, Yann Vasnier and Louise Turner have distilled their discoveries of the exquisite and delicate, the wild, weedy and often overlooked, into five beautiful new fragrances. The three have recreated not only the scents, colors and textures of the plant life of English riparian zones but have also brought to life their shared experiences of English canals, old barges, river banks and woodlands. I find Wild Flowers and Weeds to be a perfect pendant to other recent limited editions in the Jo Malone Brit collections, The Bloomsbury Set (Yann Vasnier – 2017), English Oak (Yann Vasnier – 2017) and English Fields Collection (Mathilde Bijaoui – 2018).Today I will briefly review three of my favorite Wild Flowers and Weeds – Willow and Amber, Hemlock and  Bergamot and Cade and Cedarwood.

Willow and Amber photo by Gail Gross ©

Jo Malone Willow and Amber is a scent that evokes the dance of weeping willow boughs as they move and whisper in the wind, reflecting leaves and twigs on the ruffled surfaces of pools and streams. The bright, invigoratingly cool marriage of bergamot and pink pepper gradually blossoms into a distinctively translucent veil of muted woods and grassy sweet vetiver. Light and shadow play a fluid hide and seek over fresh, transparent scented surfaces for several hours before coming to rest in a sensual haze of soft, green-golden amber.  Notes:  Bergamot, pink pepper, soft Cashmere woods, vetiver and amber.

Hemlock and Bergamot, photo collage by Gail Gross ©

Jo Malone Hemlock and Bergamot outlines, in scent, the colors and textures of poisonous Hemlocks. The delicate flowers and lacy leaves of these deadly herbaceous biennials have, sadly and too often, been confused with those of cultivated parsley and carrots. The philosopher Socrates, by far the most famous victim of poison Hemlock, would certainly have appreciated the beauty of the plant itself.  Perfumers Yann Vasnier and Louise Turner have created an alternative and non-deadly  experience of the exquisite Hemlock via ethereal hints of powdery, golden yellow mimosa and soft purple hued heliotrope, freshened with just the right touch of bergamot and a crisp, cool bite of cucumber. Notes: Mimosa, cassie, heliotrope, bergamot, cucumber, birch leaves and white musk.

Cade and Cedarwood, photo by Gail Gross ©    

My first breath of Jo Malone Cade and Cedarwood recalls memories of my father's woodshop. The scent of sawdust, left from the cedar hope chests he made for his daughters and granddaughters, mingles with the perfume of freshly cut white oak boards.  As Jo Malone Cade and Cedarwood develops on my skin, one of my favorite notes in perfumery, cade, an oil distilled from Mediterranean Juniper tar, adds smoky, smoldering-sweet comfort to the cologne, reminding me of the woodstove in the cozy cabin on board my brother's live-aboard sailboat, a warm refuge from the cold NW winds and waves. Notes: Cedarwood, cade, roasted oak and vanilla.

Disclaimer:  I would like to thank Jo Malone for the beautifully decorated bottles of Willow and Amber, Hemlock, Cedarwood and Cade and Cedarwood.  My opinions are my own.

Gail Gross – Senior Editor

Art Direction – Michelyn Camen, Editor in Chief. Our thanks to Givaudan for use of their photos

The Five Bottles of Jo Malone Wildflowers and Weeds courtesy of Jo Malone

The Jo Malone Wild Flowers and Weeds Colognes are available in 30ml bottles, decorated with illustrations of the key ingredients of each fragrance inspired by a traditional painting style. Customers will receive a matching keepsake tin with purchases of two scents from the collection, or the full line-up. On sale March 2019 in the USA

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