Jo Malone London highlights local landscapes for limited-edition launch

June 19, 2023

A new collection presents a sensorial exploration of the Scottish Highlands and plants rarely featured by perfumes in the sector. Image credit: Jo Malone

By Emily Iris Degn

British luxury fragrance brand Jo Malone’s latest campaign highlights local landscapes.

Time spent by a top executive and three perfumers in the Scottish Highlands informs a limited-edition collection, comprised of four scents. Embracing the demand for immersive marketing and sensorial offerings, each fragrance specifically captures the aroma profiles of native wildflowers in a distilling of an excursion exclusive to Jo Malone, wildness at its core.

“We always had certain images of the Highlands in our minds that we wanted to explore: purple heather covering misty moors, wildflowers entwining castle walls, and the noble thistle, ruggedly beautiful flower of Scotland,” said Céline Roux, global head of fragrance at Jo Malone, in a statement.

“We worked together with the perfumers to come up with different ideas for how to express these inspirations in fragrance, to really think outside the box in terms of the olfactive, always staying focused on the idea of being in nature.”

Caledonian creations
The special collection is imbued with a sense of national pride, uplifting the British Isles that the brand calls home.

In a sea of rose and jasmine-scented perfumes, Jo Malone presents heather, achillea, mallow and thistle, the national flower of Scotland – the accompanying visual campaign showcases the habitats they blanket, from mist-laden moors to the ancient, crumbling walls of commonwealth castles.

Lochs and hillsides alike are captured via fragrance. Image credit: Jo Malone

Together, Ms. Roux and perfumers Marie Salamagne, Anne Flipo and Yann Vasnier sought to celebrate these visions of Britain through their craft.

Traveling to the Scottish region for this quest, the resulting collection offers a nuanced and intimate view of the U.K.’s natural spaces.

“Often, when we think of the British countryside, we think of something that’s a bit more orderly, a bit more groomed,” said Ms. Roux, in a statement.

“But with the Scottish Highlands, nature runs wild in such a dramatic way,” she said. “We really wanted to embrace this with this collection.

“The idea that however much you may try to control nature, when left to its own devices it just takes over.”

Discover Melancholy Thistle. A bracing scent evoking a long-abandoned castle in the Scottish Highlands, guarded by bold and bright Melancholy Thistles. #ScentsOfBritain https://t.co/0aZKAHYddT pic.twitter.com/kwUTAYkg13
— Jo Malone London (@JoMaloneLondon) May 27, 2023

Ms. Roux originally aimed to focus the four fragrances on Scottish castles, finding inspiration in the ruins. However, upon interactions with bee experts, she pivoted.

After being informed that bees are most attracted to purple and yellow flowers for pollination, the director embarked on an investigation of the locale’s wild blooms, set on revolving the collection around pollinator favorites as far as ingredients go.

The team of perfumers and Ms. Roux worked together in Scotland to pour both the essence of the surrounding landscapes and their own visions of them into their respective colognes.

The diversity of Scotland's wildest, most remote locations is the subject of a fresh offering. Image credit: Jo Malone

Ms. Salamagne’s designated fragrance is that of heather, referring to her past hikes in the region through mineral notes indicative of the soils and accompanying flora. “Highland Heather” is an accumulation of her interactions with the land and her artisan expertise, as well as an inclusion of Ms. Roux’s original, Apoidea-related aim.

“I was fascinated by how heather turns whole hillsides purple when in bloom, attracting bees that make the most prized honey,” said Ms. Salamagne, in a statement.

“Heather offers aromatic, woody notes, as well as fresh florals, both of which were represented in our heather accord,” she said. “To this we added cypress and vetiver for naturality and amber for sensuality.

“Towards the end of the development, we blended in English lavender to really emphasize that purple, aromatic appeal so beloved of the bees.”

Ms. Filipo and Ms. Vasnier alternatively focused on the thistle and mallow, respectively, calling their blends “Melancholy Thistle” and “Mallow On The Moor.” Each is just as specialized as Ms. Salamagne’s.

Imagining remote ruins framed by golden bundles of wild achillea. Discover Wild Achillea. #ScentsOfBritain https://t.co/0aZKAHYddT pic.twitter.com/rdB7M1kgez
— Jo Malone London (@JoMaloneLondon) May 31, 2023

“Wild Achillea,” a reiteration of a Wild Flowers & Weeds collection item, finishes off the foursome, the team viewing the perfume as particularly generous in terms of providing consumers with a sensorial product.

“The collection didn’t feel complete until we began to think about re-introducing Wild Achillea,” said Ms. Roux, in a statement.

“Achillea is a flower that bees are also very attracted to, which, combined with its vibrant green freshness, made it a perfect match for The Highlands collection,” she said. “When you smell it you really feel transported to wild nature, which is very much the feeling with all the new fragrances in the collection.”

Sensory shows of support
This is not the first time that a luxury brand has taken to the Scottish Highlands, French crystal maker Baccarat recently using the area as a backdrop for its sparkling compositions (see story).

Other companies in the sector are similarly showing an appreciation for the rising push toward immersive marketing, often turning to nature (see story) to achieve the effect.

Jo Malone is among many affluent perfumeries acting as a mediator between customers and nature. Image credit: Jo Malone

Fragrance names are seemingly some of the biggest proponents of this move, platforming a sense of place via highly-visual slots and hyper-local ingredients proudly touted (see story).

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