I give Sarah Louise a kind of abridged version of my perfume diatribe and to her credit, she doesn’t bat an eye.
“Well you could actually combine a few of those and create your own signature scent,” she says, picking up the pomegranate noir and spraying it on a scent card.
I’d heard of the brands technique of fragrance combining but, to be honest, I was always a bit skeptical. Surely it would be too much – layering all these scents?
“My favourite combo at the moment is adding the Orange Blossom on top of the Pomegranate Noir to make it fresher,” she says, spritzing the floral scent over the top of the scent card and handing it to me. True to her word, it’s suddenly lifted. The layering of the two takes a dark, inky evening scent into playful territory. I could imagine wearing it to a Christmas party, it’s fun and frivolous but with the guts of spiced woods and pink pepper.
“Jo Malone London fragrances are created very simply,” explains Sarah Louise. “There’s a lot of clarity in them, so compared to most other fragrances that have about 400 ingredients ours only have 100. Fragrance combining makes it more bespoke as well. You don’t have to do two fragrances, you can do a lotion and a cologne, or when you’re entertaining you can do “scent surround” by mixing room sprays and candles, so you can create a really unique space.”
We head over the table and Sarah Louise gives me a little felt bag for my rings, hands me my champagne and begins a totally luxurious hand massage with the new Wood Sage & Sea Salt Body Crème. She then spritzes Red Roses Cologneover the top, onto my forearms.
“It adds a bit of warmth and floralness to the already woody and fresh Wood Sage & Sea Salt,” she explains as she presses it into my skin gently.
