Ode to Jo Malone’s “Ode to Autumn”

Jo Malone’s delicious new fragrant offering, English Pear & Freesia, was inspired by the John Keats poem “Ode to Autumn.”

Keats describes the tastes, sights, and sounds of fall.

“The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness conspires with the sun to produce luscious fruits.”

In this poet’s world the bounty is ripe, just like Malone’s new scent, available at Neiman Marcus stores or neimanmarcus.com.

“Imagine a garden in London with rambling white roses and the freesia and the pears and the fruits and the woods. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful fragrance,” stated Jo Malone Education Director Vicki Smith.

“It’s all about that fresh crisp pear,” she continued. “When you bite into a pear the outer portion is a little bit tough and maybe even bitter, but when you get to the meat of it, it’s juicy and sweet and succulent,” she noted.

The fruity fragrance of the pear combine with quince, rhubarb and rambling roses in a woodsy base to create an unforgettable concoction, which is handsome on its own but spectacular when combined with other Jo Malone scents.

Try Grapefruit if you want to bring out the top citrus notes. Or if you want to emphasize the fruity you could add a little Nectarine Blossom & Honey, Jo Malone’s number one seller in North America.

Personally I love using a strong, single-note floral–like the Red Roses bath oil–with the English Pear cologne on top.

The bath oils, which are quite versatile and can be used in a myriad of ways, “bloom into a beautiful bath milk,” Vicki explained, “without the mess.”

“No bathtub ring, no slick bathtubs–your bathroom, and your skin, just smell amazing,” she said.

You can use it after the shower on damp skin, so it’s a perfect layer for your other fragrances. Put it on dry or mix with an unscented body cream.

In fact, it’s such a light oil that you can even smooth a few drops on the ends of your hair for shine and scent.

But remember that the order in which you apply your fragrances can also make a difference.

“If you’re using a really warm scent, you want to put that on your skin first and then layer your lighter, fresher scent over it because you don’t want them to overwhelm one another,” Vicki explained. “Or you could reverse it with a lighter fragrance in a body cream or bath oil, topped with the warmer scent, and it changes the whole dynamic of the fragrance.”

Thanks, Vicki, for the tips, and to Jo Malone for paying homage to the fall season with another wildly inventive creation inspired by one of my husband’s favorite poems.

The English Pear & Freesia is a must for your fragrance collection as much as John Keats is a must for your library.