The Philosophy of Scent Layering

While it’s true that we all wear fragrance to express a certain facet of our personality or mood, who we want to be and how we want to present ourselves to others can change multiple times throughout the day. That’s why Scent Layering is the basis of our DNA, allowing you to change up your scent to suit the occasion. ‘The personalisation that Scent Layering allows is at the heart of everything we do, it’s central to the thought process from the very start and means that the way we develop our colognes is truly unique. We’ve been innovators in embracing the art of bespoke from our conception, allowing you to customise your fragrance and create a true signature scent. Something that is uniquely yours,’ says Celine Roux, Global Head Of Fragrance at Jo Malone London.

The key to this is a real concentration on the cleanness and clarity of the scent itself during its formulation. While it’s not uncommon for many fragrances to have up to 400 ingredients, ours tend to have far fewer, because a Jo Malone London scent is made to combine. ‘As you can imagine, the more ingredients you have the less clarity you have,’ explains Céline. ‘It would be the same with cooking – if you add a lot of spices, it becomes difficult to detect what’s actually in the dish.’ And because there is such a streamlined selection of notes in each one of our fragrances, that also means the quality of those ingredients are of paramount importance to the perfumers developing them. This is also reflected in the names of the scents. You’ll notice that the vast majority of our fragrances have relatively straightforward names that detail the key notes inside the bottle. Of course, there are others – Grapefruit, for example, also has notable dashes of rosemary, mint and vetiver – but this naming convention helps a person who might be looking to layer to see at a glance what those key notes are and how they might pair nicely.

So, what are the rules of Scent Layering? How many is too many at one time? To begin, Céline advises starting your Scent Layering journey with two fragrances. Start with a favourite cologne in one scent, and then spritz one of our suggested combiners on top – so that’s Grapefruit to uplift with a little zing to really awaken your senses, Peony & Blush Suede for warmth and an everyday floral scent or English Oak & Hazelnut for a touch of fresh elegance in the evening.

‘Doing it this way, feels like a gateway into experimenting with scent. But there’s no limit – I don’t want people to feel like they need strict instructions. Scent Layering is about having fun and experimenting.’

So, in short, when it comes to Scent Layering the only rule is, there are no rules.
Get out there, test which scents work for you and explore who you want to be.