Lavender - Not Just For Granny. Jo Malone launch Lavenderland

4 min read

Lavender might remind you of your Granny, but the famous scent is having a moment in the perfume world, and Jo Malone London has a whole new collection created with it.

The brand is offering a fresh perspective on the iconic ingredient of English Lavender. I love lavender out in the wild, and it’s a clever and interesting scent when blended with other notes in fragrance. There are three scents in this collection, all limited edition, and all in 30ml decorative bottles.

Lavender & Coriander is a reprise of a scent that was introduced as part of the herb garden collection a few years back and uses lavender, sage, coriander and tonka bean for a warm, aromatic scent.

Silver Birch & Lavender is a cool woody fragrance, which I really love. It has a note of grapefruit, a base of silver birch, and a note of roasted oak in there too.

Wisteria & Lavender is a truly nostalgic lavender floral. It has sweet wisteria and powdery heliotrope in there, all cocooned in a clean and delicate white musk. This is a lovely fragrance.

Celine Roux, Global Head of Fragrance, explains where the inspiration for the collection came from.

For a long time, we have wanted to create a fragrance collection with three perfumers around one ingredient. It all started in Venice during an internal team-building trip –
I invited the perfumers Anne Flipo, Marie Salamagne and Yann Vasnier to speak to our global teams and run some workshops. I saw this incredible chemistry between them,” she explained.

They are all so talented and come from different fragrance houses, yet they have so many shared experiences. It was a very special moment and I thought ‘this is our dream team’. We suggested the collaboration focus on lavender as the ingredient is so British and each perfumer’s creativity could flow from that.”

The usual fragrance ingredient is French Lavender, but Celine explains how they worked with English Lavender.

In perfumery, we mainly use French lavender,” Celine explained. “It is such a familiar, popular scent, so we wanted to explore it as a sophisticated fragrance ingredient in ways that you might not be used to. We’ve taken natural English lavender and gone in three different directions with the other ingredients, to give it that Jo Malone London twist.

Marie Salamagne’s Wisteria & Lavender celebrates the floral side of lavender and the dreamy purple colours of both flowers. Yann Vasnier’s Silver Birch & Lavender is a dryer, sexy, woody ‘fougere’ interpretation; and Anne Flipo’s Lavender & Coriander brings the aromatic oriental facets into centre stage.

As well as the three colognes, there are two home products in Lavender & Musk.

This was actually one of the first ideas Marie and I developed,” explained Celine.  “This Lavender & Musk accord worked so beautifully, and we fell in love with it, but when we tried it on the skin as a cologne it didn’t work. We decided to evolve it into a home scent as a Pillow Mist and Diffuser, as an additional way to incorporate lavender into this collection.”

The Lavenderland Travel Pouch (available exclusively online for £99) contains Silver Birch & Lavender Cologne, an English Pear & Freesia Travel Candle, and the Lavender & Musk Pillow Mist

All products are available now from Jo Malone stores, locations, and jomalone.co.uk. The Colognes are £50 each, Pillow Mist £25,. Diffuser £67.


There are other big-name scents out there using lavender as well – here’s four of them, all available at escentual.com.

First up GUERLAIN Mon Guerlain Eau de Parfum Intense Spray 50ml £74.70. There are strong top notes of Carla lavender from Provence in this new Intense flanker to the best-selling Mon Guerlain collection. This EDP has top notes of bergamot, mandarin and Carla lavender, a heart of sambac jasmine, vanilla tincture and Tahitensis vanilla, and a base of white musks, patchouli and sandalwood.

Yves Saint Laurent Libre Eau de Parfum Spray 30ml £47.60. The first thing that hits you with the Libre scent is the strong top note of lavender essential oils, blended with citrus and blackcurrant. It’s the first female floral-lavender scent produced by YSL and it incorporates an unusual but addictive contrast of the aromatic lavender notes with a creamy-heady blend of jasmine and orange blossom from Morocco. It’s a white floral with herbal undertones.

Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo Cipresso di Toscana Eau de Toilette Spray 30ml £38.70. This is a fresh, energising scent with lavender at its heart. It’s an EDT with top notes of star anise, and elemi that catch the nose instantly, as they mingle with zesty facets of orange and petitgrain. Lavender combines with sage at the heart, and cypress and pine in the base. A brilliant spring scent.

Emporio Armani Stronger With You Intensely Eau de Parfum Spray 50ml £45.90. A different take on using lavender, in this scent, it mingles with sweet toffee, caramel and cinnamon at its heart. The top notes include spices and violet and the base ends with suede, vanilla and amber. This is not for the faint-hearted!