1. THE SMELL
OF SUCCESSFRAGRANCE QUEEN JO MALONE ON HER STORY
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WIMBLEDON WANDSWORTH PUTNEY

2. 14
INTERVIEW
Jo Malone talks to Chris
Salzano about her amazing
sense for fragrance, her
journey through cancer and
building a global brand
THE SWEET
SMELL OF
SUCCESS
o Malone is synonymous with
success. Not only her own – building
a global business from her kitchen
table – but also the beauty brand that takes
her name, which has long been associated with
sophistication and aspiration.
Jo has battled cancer, received an MBE and is
now at the helm of a second global brand, Jo
Loves. She is an inspiration and her memoir
My Story is surely set to cement that moniker
even more so.
While most people know Jo as a savvy,
international business woman her start in life
was tough, she tells me when we chat ahead of
her appearance at Wimbledon BookFest.
“It’s very truthful,” she says of the book. “I
haven’t papered over the cracks – I let all
those emotions through, all those good times
and tough times. I am very proud of this book
and I think it will inspire a lot of people and
will cause people to look at me as a person
very differently.”
Jo grew up in Bexleyheath on a council estate
then left school aged 14 without qualifications
to look after her mum. It was a struggle writing
about those early days, she says. “I put it down
twice saying ‘no I can’t do this – it’s too painful.’
I cried a lot in my childhood and when I was
writing. The good thing that has happened
is I fell in love with my mum and dad again,
both have passed. It wasn’t the easiest of
relationships but what I realise now is, oh my
goodness, they really tried their best.”
Despite her difficult start and being
dyslexic, Jo’s unique talent for scent, her
entrepreneurial spirit and sheer determination
saw her revolutionise the beauty industry and
create a brand recognised the world over.
Originally a facial therapist, she handmade
scents in her kitchen to give to clients. They
were soon in demand and the rest, as they
say, is history. She sold the business to beauty
giant Estée Lauder in 1999 and remained
creative director until she left in 2006. Two
years later she was awarded an MBE for
services to the beauty industry.
I put it to her that leaving behind her name
must have been hard?
“No, It wasn’t hard at the time as I had just
fought cancer – my head was in a very different
place and it was completely my choice.”
What she didn’t realise, she says, is her love for
THE SWEET
SMELL OF
SUCCESS

3. 15
INTERVIEW
the cosmetic industry and fragrance. “I didn’t
anticipate how powerful that relationship was
in me and how miserable I was without it.”
She was proud of what she achieved, she
explains, and felt her brand was in safe
hands with Estée Lauder. But later, it felt like
a wrong turn and she became determined to
find her way back to what made her happy –
making fragrance.
Indeed, fragrance is in her very essence. Her
talent as a ‘nose’ is well documented and how
she finds inspiration for her gorgeous scents is
really quite remarkable.
“I am like a bloodhound,” she says. “I can look
at a colour and smell fragrance and I can hear
music and smell fragrance.”
She loves people and travelling, she enthuses,
but it won’t be the obvious things that trigger
her creativity. She gives me an example of
visiting a market in Normandy recently: “I
wandered through and took loads of pictures
of these amazing strawberries, peaches and
flowers and then suddenly I walked passed
this little antiques shop and there was this
whole pile of white and cornflower blue tiles.
What gave me the idea for a fragrance? Tiles!”
We laugh.
“When you see something,” she explains, “You
see colour. When I see it, I see fragrance and I
can’t predict it or control it. I can’t tell you when
it’s going to happen but when it happens it’s so
powerful it’s as though I have fallen in love with
something and everything around me stops.”
Battling breast cancer at the age 37 was a
turning point for her. “I kept saying I want my
life back, I want my life back. When you face
your own mortality and someone tells you,
‘You are going to die’, it changes you as a
person. A year’s chemotherapy definitely
changed me and all I wanted to do is create
fragrance again. But, of course, you can’t just
pick something up again, you have ease your
way back into it.”
She left Jo Malone because it had started
to feel like a job and she worried the cancer
would return: “I didn’t want to be travelling
around the world, I wanted to create memories
with my family but, in fact, it didn’t come back
and I learned a lot about myself.”
The first fragrance she created after five years
was Pomelo, which is very special to her. As
you read Jo’s book, you can rub your hands
over the pages to release Pomelo.
“The reason I love Jo Loves so much is that
it showed me a different way,” she says. ”It
showed me who I was, it helped me find my
creativity again and it helped me build – in the
process of building another global brand.”
She’s bolder with fragrance now, she says
and has just come up with smoked plum and
leather.
“I would never have done that – the whole
journey of life has made me trust that instinct
and creativity and I would say creativity is one
of my best friends.”
Jo has a strong work ethic and is very
open. She’s quick to offer advice to budding
entrepreneurs and has a weekly business
column in the Evening Standard. What advice
would she give someone starting out?
“You have to stay true to who you are... the
bigger you get, the more pressure to become
something else. I have just stayed true, I
have always walked my own path, kept my
own counsel, and I think that is why my gift
is still very clearly who the author is rather
than anything else – I have stayed true to the
creativity and how it works for me.”
She hopes her book will encourage others:
“I think they will look at my life and think, ‘my
goodness if she can do what she has done with
where she came from and what happened to
her, what can I do?’”
“You have to take responsibility, it’s no one’s
responsibility in life but yours – you take
hold of that. And I think in this book you read
the stories of how I got to where I did, I took
responsibility from a very young age and made
that decision of where I was going to head
regardless of what I was being told.”
Building a new brand hasn’t been without its
difficulties, she tells me, but it’s exciting times
for Jo Loves. She’s just signed a global deal
with designer fashion company Net-A-Porter
and Emirates Airlines. There are plans to
open more stores and she has something very
special planned for next year.
“I am working on a 2017/18 collection and we
are creating something that will cause people
to wear fragrance differently.”
And you just know it will!
 Jo Malone My Story is published by Simon and
Schuster £20 (hardback). www.joloves.com
twitter.com/JomaloneMBE.
I am like a bloodhound,
I can look at a colourand
smellfragrance and
I can hear music
and smell fragrance.
‘‘
‘‘
Jo Malone at Wimbledon BookFest