Jo Malone
Jo Malone
395 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Blackberry explodes across your skin with unexpected sharpness, the grapefruit immediately cleaving through with citric acidity whilst bay leaf asserts its herbaceous claim. Within minutes, the composition feels almost savoury—a berry compote that's somehow also a herb bundle, green and slightly peppery.
The blossoms emerge subtly, softening the blackberry-bay intensity without sweetening it; they add a whisper of delicacy to what's otherwise a decidedly austere composition. The green accord intensifies here, the fragrance settling into something distinctly botanical, less fruit-forward and increasingly garden-like.
Cedarwood and vetiver surface, their woody dryness rendering the fragrance increasingly skeletal and transparent. Within four hours, Blackberry & Bay has largely dissipated, leaving only the faintest pencil-shaving dryness and a ghost of bay leaf on the skin—hardly a trace, but the lingering impression of something that was there.
Blackberry & Bay arrives as a deliberately restrained affair—a cologne that whispers rather than declaims. There's an immediate tension between the jammy ripeness of blackberry and the savoury herbaceousness of bay leaf, a combination that feels more like something you'd encounter in a kitchen garden than a vanity. The grapefruit doesn't sweeten the proposition; instead, it sharpens the berries into something almost tart, cutting through with a citric bite that keeps the fruit from becoming cloying.
What's remarkable here is the green accord threading through everything—those accords don't lie. The bay leaf isn't a supporting player; it's fundamentally reshaping how the blackberry reads on skin, pushing it towards something herbal and slightly medicinal rather than gourmand. It's reminiscent of crushing leaves between your fingers rather than biting into preserved fruit.
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3.8/5 (420)