Brush Hour — Rethink the Way You Wear Perfume with the Jo Loves White Rose & Lemon Leaves Fragrance Paintbrush
The back stories of many esteemed perfumers share some major commonalities: a sizable number of these noses hail from Grasse — as is the case with Olivier Cresp, Françoise Caron, Jacques Cavallier Bertrand, Nathalie Lorson, and Antoine Maisondieu — or, like Dominique Ropion, Edmond Roudnitska, Pierre Bourdon, and countless others, they studied at highly prestigious institutes and worked at famed perfume houses like Galimard (the perfumery that made scents for Louis XV’s court in the 18th century), Molinard, and Fragonard in the storied town, located on the French Riviera. Sure, there are plenty of perfumers who hail from other cities and other nations, but it’s interesting that, to this day, Grasse plays such an important role in the art of scent-making. Another common theme: many of these fragrance magicians were born into families with deep routes in the art of perfumery. Just look at Olivier Creed, the sixth-generation perfumier, who is tasked with creating the stunning scents for the British fragrance house Creed — his ties to perfumery date back to 1781 when his ancestor, House of Creed founder James Creed, was commissioned to develop a scent for King George III. And, if you look at the history of fragrance and its most notable figures, you’ll be struck by the abundance of men in the industry — believe it or not, for centuries, perfumery was not only a family business but one passed from a male heir to the next. Women were virtually absent from the industry.
All of these factors, then, converge to make the story of Jo Malone all the more exceptional. The strikingly talented Malone was born in Bexleyheath, in the UK’s historic county of Kent. Her mom was a beautician and her father a florist — both professions that require a gift for aesthetics, but neither directly related to the art of perfumery. And, while many of her peers studied at prestigious fragrance institutes and earned their stripes as apprentices to established perfumers, Jo Malone began her foray into the fragrance relying only on her self-training. Having started out her career as an aesthetician, giving facials in a skin care clinic inside her London apartment, Malone began creating scented oils by hand and discovering new and enticing scent combinations. As the fabled story goes, she gifted some of her clients her now iconic Nutmeg and Ginger Bath Oil, and they swooned over it, telling all their friends about the magical potion. Soon enough, Malone was concocting bath oils, body creams, and fragrances full-time — and she still couldn’t keep up with the growing demand. By 1994, she opened her first store in London. By 1999, she’d sold the company to Estée Lauder, and she remained at the company’s helm as Creative Director until 2006. To put it simply, Jo Malone was a #girlboss before hashtags were even a thing, before the World Wide Web had even been born.
In 2011, after stepping away from her namesake brand, Jo Malone embarked upon a new adventure in fragrance, Jo Loves — and in, 2016, she blessed the US market with her new line of scented candles, bath oils, body lotions, and fragrances. Not only are the scents crisp, elegant, and evocative, but they’re also packaged in a simple, minimalist manner. And, as always, Jo Malone continues to think outside the box, reinventing the way we experience fragrance. In 2017, she wowed us by introducing a never-before-seen form of fragrance: a perfumed paintbrush. We’d seen traditional spray-on EDTs and EDPs, solid perfumes (some even tucked inside baubles), and rollerball tubes, but a gel fragrance that could be brushed onto pulse points? The world hadn’t seen anything like it yet.
The Jo Loves Fragrance Paintbrush ($55 at JoLoves.com), then, is a literal stroke of genius. Every time I use it, I feel like I’m channeling Bob Ross, sweeping my brush across my canvas to create an olfactory experience. It’s insanely fun to use (who does’t like using a brush, right?), and it’s incredibly convenient since the portable tube is sturdier than most rollerball fragrances and purse-sized EDPs out there (there’s no glass exterior that could potentially break inside your tote).
The Fragrance Paintbrush is available in four scents, but the most recent addition is White Rose & Lemon Leaves, which I had the pleasure of testing out. To use the Fragrance Paintbrush, you first have to shake it a bit (just like you would an oil-based paint marker), then remove the cap, and click on the button along the bottom of the tube until you see that the clear-colored gel has been dispensed onto the brush bristles. At that point, you can just think of your body as a canvas and start painting the fragrance onto your pulse points. Another advantage of using a fragrance in brush form is that it makes it easier to target zones that you might neglect when spritzing on a perfume in liquid form — for example, the back of the knees, which are warm and soft and an really capture a scent so that, as the day goes on and you cross and uncross your legs, a beautiful plume of that fragrance fills the air.
As for the White Rose & Lemon Leaves fragrance, it’s everything you’d expect from a Jo Malone fragrance: crisp, clean, elegant, and wonderful in its simplicity. As soon as you brush the perfumed gel onto your wrists, you’ll be enamored by the scent of Norma Jean white roses, a note so perfectly replicated that you’ll feel like you’re standing in front of that wall of white roses Kim Kardashian had built for her lavish wedding to Kanye West. Then, as the minutes pass, other notes will begin to manifest themselves: a hint of lemon and a barely-there peppery kick, alongside a lush green aroma that will evoke the feeling of being out in an orchard or a pristinely groomed garden. As the fragrance dries down, you’ll finally become acquainted with a very subtle cedarwood note that adds depth and dimension to the fragrance. But overall, it’s that intense rose aroma that will pull you in and keep you wanting more.
Just one word of advise: as fun as it is to use the fragrance paintbrush, don’t go too crazy! Otherwise you will wind up giving everyone near you a headache since the perfumed gel is quite potent. Remember: even the best things need to be experienced in small doses!
