Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Jo Malone: My Story
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: c. 1965
WEBSITE:
CITY: London, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Jo-Malone-My-Story/Jo-Malone/9781471143007 * http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/jo-malone-autobiography-jo-loves-interview
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016058973
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016058973
HEADING: Malone, Jo
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670 __ |a Jo Malone, 2016: |b eCIP t.p. (Jo Malone)
PERSONAL
Born 1965.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Entrepreneur. Jo Loves, London, England, founder.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Jo Malone is a British entrepreneur. Overcoming great odds, she established the Jo Loves brand of luxury beauty products. In an article in the New York Times Book Review, she confided to Rachel Felder: “The relationship I have with fragrance is rather like one that you have with your best friend.”
Malone published her memoir, titled Jo Malone: My Story, in 2016. In this personal account, Malone shows how she rose from humble origins to become one of the leading businesswomen in the luxury retail industry. After dropping out of school at age fifteen, she began making facial creams and giving facials: activities that paved the way for her to enter into the beauty product business. Joined in business by her husband, the couple navigated many ups and downs in life but managed to make a significant impact in the industry. Malone’s name has since become iconic in the word of personal beauty products and luxury home accents. As Katie Law observed in the London Evening Standard, “For many of us a world without scented candles is impossible to imagine — specifically, a world without a Jo Malone scented candle.”
In an interview in Glamour, Malone explained to Rebecca Fearn that people had been asking her to pen her memoirs for quite some time. She admitted that “after I bought a business and I sold to Lauder I thought that was the time. Then after I fought cancer and I came back, that was the time, but I never really thought it was the time. I had this real sense that if I was going to write this book – you know you only write your life story once – I have to make sure that it’s right. When you write a book you have to be standing on the mountain side and you have to be looking down.”
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called Malone’s memoir “a moving and revealing account of the author’s passion for business and personal success.” Booklist correspondent Emily Brock said that throughout the book “Malone uses evocative language that’s sure to ignite readers’ senses to an extent that’s rare in nonfiction.” In a review in Management Today, Claire Vero stated: “Reading about Malone’s gut-wrenching struggle with cancer—the chemo, the double mastectomy, her son shaving her head (‘giving Mummy a buzz cut’)—left me sobbing. She writes movingly, but never self-pityingly, of those dark times.” Vero then added: “To anyone going through dark or stormy days themselves, her determination and vision are inspiring. She wants us to get up if we’re knocked down, just as she did.”
Finding Malone’s story to be “full of tender moments and hope,” a Publishers Weekly reviewer predicted that “this book will excite aspiring entrepreneurs seeking inspiration.” Suggesting that “a good story rings with truth,” a contributor to the Now Smell This Web site further remarked: “Malone’s recounting of her bout with breast cancer does show this truth. She’s open about her fear and unreasonableness, and about her gratitude and endurance. It still feels a shade removed, but I think cancer survivors and their families will appreciate these chapters.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist , November 1, 2016, Emily Brock, review of Jo Malone: My Story, p. 4.
Evening Standard (London, England), September 29, 2016, Katie Law, review of Jo Malone.
Glamour, September 30, 2016, Rebecca Fearn, “Jo Malone MBE on Beauty Icons, Career Tips, and Her Long-Awaited Autobiography.”
Kirkus Reviews September 15, 2016, review of Jo Malone.
Management Today, November 1, 2016, review of Jo Malone, p. 24.
New York Times Book Review, October 2, 2016, Rachel Felder, “Jo Malone: Her Story.”
Publishers Weekly, September 26, 2016, review of Jo Malone, p. 79.
ONLINE
Cut, https://www.thecut.com/ (December 9, 2016), Linda Wells, “Jo Malone on Battling Breast Cancer and Her New Fragrance, Second Act.”
Now Smell This, http://www.nstperfume.com/ (December 12, 2016), review of Jo Malone.
Simon and Schuster U.K., http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk (July 10, 2017), summary of Jo Malone.*
Malone is the inspirational British businesswoman responsible for creating her globally renowned beauty business and, more recently, her new brand 'Jo Loves'. This, her first autobiography, tells in full her incredible journey from modest beginnings as a teenager, struggling with dyslexia and leaving school with no qualifications, to becoming an international brand name and one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.
Jo's lively story explores how her fascination with smell teamed with her natural ability to create world-famous blends such as 'Lime, Basil & Mandarin', revolutionised the way we think about fragrance.
Her unique talent for pioneering innovation and originality within her field is unrivalled. Yet, despite her success, she has faced huge challenges with courage and determination, including being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 37 and told she only had nine months to live, and her decision to go it alone after selling the original Jo Malone brand to the Estee Lauder Corporation and walking away in 2006.
Jo's commitment and down-to-earth approach to life, work and family makes her one of the most likeable and well respected personalities in British retail and her honesty, hard work and entrepreneurial grit are an inspiration to all.
Jo Malone: Her Story
By RACHEL FELDEROCT. 2, 2016
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Jo Malone using a paintbrush to apply Pomelo Body Lotion on a customer, the final step of the Jo Loves Fragrance Tapas experience at her store in London. Credit Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
As the founder of two fragrance brands, Jo Malone has been immutably associated with perfume for a couple of decades. So it’s not surprising that the print editions of her autobiography — “Jo Malone: My Story,” to be published in Britain this week by Simon & Schuster, with an American release due next month — have a fragrant twist: A page near the front is treated with Pomelo, a crisp, citrus-based scent from her Jo Loves collection, which will waft softly upward to the reader.
The book recounts her life through a business lens, from helping her father sell paintings at a market stall at age 8 to the founding of the Jo Malone brand and, recently, Jo Loves. She also talks about difficult times, such as being estranged from her mother and overcoming breast cancer, topics she refers to with an unflustered air.
“What I want this book to be about is the reinvention of yourself, that nothing is wasted in our life, that every single thing that happens in our life can come out for the good to build you,” Ms. Malone said by telephone from her office in the Chelsea neighborhood of London. “I really want this story to resonate and to be for people to say, ‘I can build my business.”’
The business Ms. Malone is best known for — Jo Malone London — is now owned by Estée Lauder. She sold it to the global giant for an undisclosed amount in 1999, staying on as creative director until 2006. In 2011, she introduced Jo Loves.
“The relationship I have with fragrance is rather like one that you have with your best friend,” said Ms. Malone, 53. “When you don’t see your best friend for a while, you really miss them. And those five years of not creating fragrance was one of the most miserable times of my life. I just didn’t know who I was. Deciding to come back and do it again was my only option.”
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Like Jo Malone London, Jo Loves includes perfumes and ancillary products like scented candles and aromatic body moisturizers. But the two brands wouldn’t be mistaken for one another: The original line now includes 32 fragrances and is widely available worldwide, while Jo Loves sells 12 eaux de toilette scents and other items in limited distribution.
Photo
A coffret of Jo Loves products. Credit Tom Jamieson for The New York Times
They do, however, share some distinguishing traits: sleek and simple bottles with unisex appeal; deliberately direct fragrance names (such as, in the case of Jo Loves, Fresh Sweet Peas and Smoked Plum & Leather, the collection’s newest offering); and scents that are straightforward but often unexpected, with a quirky combination of notes that might not seem, on first whiff, obviously perfumey.
“The similarity is that they both have the same mother,” Ms. Malone said. “They both have that person that wants to push boundaries and say, ‘I know it’s always been like that, but what if. …?’ I live a life of, What if?”
Her venture is growing. In July, Net-a-Porter began carrying a concise selection of Jo Loves items; last month, the airline Emirates added the Pomelo scent to its in-flight duty-free selection. The brand also has a boutique on Elizabeth Street in the Belgravia section of London, where neighbors include an outpost of the Parisian bakery Poilâne and a shop showcasing statement hats by Philip Treacy. Ms. Malone lives nearby with her husband, Gary Willcox, with whom she owns the company, and their son, Josh, 15.
Many industry figures credit Ms. Malone’s first brand with helping to pave the way for other niche fragrances and their eventual sale to bigger businesses. For example, Estée Lauder now also owns Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle and By Kilian, and L’Oréal acquired Atelier Cologne this year. Manzanita Capital, a private equity group in London, has invested in Byredo and Diptyque.
“She was one of the pioneers of what I think of as the braggart indie set, for the woman who didn’t want to smell like any other woman in the room,” said Jane Larkworthy, executive beauty director of W magazine. “You didn’t smell anything cloying; you just smelled clean and curious, and the curious part is that you were like, What is that?”
Unlike many other perfumers, Ms. Malone had no formal training. While working as a facialist in London, she developed a scented lotion and body oil to give to her most loyal clients; the fragrance became Nutmeg & Ginger, the first Jo Malone scent.
“That whole homegrown, homespun thing is really what created her empire,” said Elizabeth Musmanno, president of the American division of the Fragrance Foundation, a perfume industry organization. “She was naïve and open-minded and flexible like a true creative could be. If you aren’t taught so much, you’re just allowed to work differently.”
While her name is highly recognizable to perfume lovers, Ms. Malone seems to be, at her core, not all that different from the scrappy little girl who helped bring in customers to her father’s outdoor booth on cold British mornings.
“She’s so down to earth,” said Sophie Bottwood, the senior merchandiser for beauty and grooming at Net-a-Porter. “She speaks so passionately about her brand that you almost forget her history — that she’s Jo Malone — because she is so involved in what she’s doing.”
Features
Jo Malone MBE on beauty icons, career tips and her long-awaited autobiography...
By Rebecca Fearn
Has more perfumes and lipsticks than sense. Travel-obsessive and US political enthusiast.
Friday 30 September 2016
Jo Malone has finally released her long-awaited autobiography. The book, which unsurprisingly has created a buzz of excitement in the beauty industry, charts the highs and lows of Jo's life, from her childhood, to the creation and sale of her first brand, Jo Malone, as well as her battle with breast cancer and the beginnings of her second fragrance brand, Jo Loves.
Jo Malone: My Story - which launches on Thursday 6 October - is a must-read for beauty fans and budding entrepreneurs alike. We spoke to Jo about what we can expect from the autobiography, as well as catching up with her about beauty tips, icons and influencers...
Instagram: @jolovesofficial
Why now? Why is this point in your life the right time to write the book?
I had been asked to write a book for the last 10 years. After I bought a business and I sold to Lauder I thought that was the time. Then after I fought cancer and I came back, that was the time, but I never really thought it was the time. I had this real sense that if I was going to write this book - you know you only write your life story once - I have to make sure that it's right. When you write a book you have to be standing on the mountain side and you have to be looking down.
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About 18 months ago, we had a phone call in the office. I had set up Jo Loves and it was the World Retail Congres. They said, "We would like to honour Jo Malone". I said, "Oh, you know, I am not part of the business anymore." They turned around and said "No the person!" It was when I heard those words, I knew: it's time. I felt it was really time to tell the story and I feel like I am about to embark on a whole new chapter of life, probably one of the biggest ones of my life and I have lived through a couple of difficult times in my life, it was time to tell the story, pass the baton and say if I can do it so can you.
What can readers expect from your book?
I think it is a book for everybody. If you have ever doubted who you ar, and your life is about to change, it is a book you'll find strength from. You will find creativity in there. You will find passion, you'll find humour, and also, if you have been in that awful situation where you are fighting a life-threatening disease, you'll find strength, resilience and courage from it as well. I am a female entrepreneur but it is not just a female book. I think men are really going to enjoy it because I do deal with the issue about my name, I do deal with the times that were really tough, not just the times that were easy, so I think men will relate to this as much as women.
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Where does your inspiration come from? Where do you find your ideas for new scents?
Do you know what, it can be anything. If you go through my phone you will see lots of pictures that I save. I look at a picture and I smell fragrance. I am very visual as well, it could be a piece of music, I could create fragrance to Adele's songs. Not the words of them, just the melody, the way it makes me feel. I suppose it is the emotional kind of connection. Places cause me to want to create fragrance, too. I have just come back from the south of France and as I stood there, I literally feel creativity, literally needles on my hands - I am so inspired.
But nobody owns creativity. People think it's your right, but nobody owns it; it just walks past you and it's up to you what you do with it. How many times have you seen something in a movie and thought: "Well, I want to do that!" But you never get up and do anything about it. So that's creativity, that's it trying to connect with you and trying to push you to do something. For me, I get up, I listen, because I trust it and I don't mind if it takes me up a dead end because I will still learn, and I don't mind if it asks me to walk for a long time by the side of it because I know eventually something will come from it.
But my inspiration from scents can come from anything. I could be sitting in a coffee shop on my own, and a horse will just ride by me and it will happen, but I can never predict it and I can't control it, so it keeps me on my toes, because you think, "OK, well this could be the last time."
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What is your advice for someone hoping to get into fragrance or for someone hoping to just build their own brand and develop their entrepreneurial skills?
The way I did it was very different and that doesn't stop anybody else doing it differently, but the norm is you have to train. I am not a nose; everyone calls me a nose but I'm really not. I have an unbelievable ability and gift to create fragrance. If you believe as a person that you have that, then you have to pursue it, but you have to be prepared.
I think in life we are responsible for ourselves. Everyone else is thinking at the minute that it is somebody else's responsibility, it's not, you're responsible. If you want to write a great article, you have got to write it. We have got to sit here and make that happen. If you want something in life that badly you have to go and make it happen and pursue it.
Even if you get the door shut in your face - as you have read, I have, many times - you find a way through, you build a tunnel, you find a ladder, you find a way. You have to convince people though, if you are going to travel a new road and be the one to do it differently you have to be the one to be prepared to do it first and you have to be prepared for people not to believe in you first of all.
What kind of qualities does an entrepreneur need in your eyes?
You need passion for what you do. You need to feel your product and feel part of it, which brings integrity.
You need creativity, you need to really understand that sort of creative process. Immerse yourself in it, do it differently, don't be frightened to take risks
Resilience.
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Those are the three things I think any entrepreneur needs. Don't be frightened of failing because failure will often take you to the point of where you have a breakthrough. All those people in life that say "I never take risks", you know what? They never reach their full potential.
Explain your daily routine to us?
I get up in the morning and I do the same thing; I am a creature of habit. I think I go out for about half an hour to walk my dog; 40 minutes, just her and I, I think about the day and everything. I am a great thinker and planner. I come back, I make a red juice, a green juice, and a cup of coffee, and I go upstairs with my note book and I start testing my nose. So I test my nose for an hour every day so I can smell things. In between that I am writing a column, then I go back and sniff, so I am spinning plates all over the place!
I have a big list book which I write everything I need to do in that day. Everything from polishing shoes to you name it: what has got to be done that day is written in that note book. Then I go into the office or I am travelling or doing a speech or something. I love going off and doing the speeches - we have just had a letter from a hospital, to ask if we can go and talk to all the NHS nurses and doctors and you know, we are so busy, but I said to Charlotte, "find time, we are doing that, that is important."
So then I get towards the end of the day and I am a big homie so I cook dinner. I love cooking dinner for my boys; Wednesday night is always a family night so we always have dinner at home. I like to be in bed quite early so I am not a party animal, although I do love to go to a party or see a movie or something. So, my life is nice and normal, lovely and calm, I like it very ordered.
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Instagram: @beautyandtheb
So we know you adore fragrance, but what else about beauty do you love?
I love skincare, I want to create a capsule and I want to make products for me because I still make my skincare at home, in my little saucepans. My skin after chemotherapy, it never was able to take proper facials again, it just erupts. I would love to return back to skincare and giving facials. I would love to, but I don't know if I ever could because now I am 53 years old and I have had so much surgery that my arm probably doesn't have the strength, but I would love to see if I could do facials. I don't want to make a business of it, I just would love to do it again. But I love anything to do with beauty, lip pencils, lip glosses, you name it I love it.
What are your best-kept beauty secrets?
I scrub milk on my eyes, it is really good if your eyes are puffy and you haven't had a lot of sleep. Put some ice-cold milk in some water with ice cubes, lay with them on my eyes, that's really really good for your eyelids to stop all the swelling.
I actually found something out the other day too, when I was mucking around with something. I had these big metal strips and I put them in the freezer. I was playing around and I had a face cream and my face was so itchy from that horrible heat we had. I took them out and I took a palette knife and I smeared some moisturizer on it and of course it froze just like cream would. I chipped it off and then I painted it onto my face. Oh my God, my face felt fantastic! Of course the water absorbs in with the oil and my face felt amazing.
Who are your biggest beauty icons?
I don't have any beauty icons, but I do think Coco Chanel and Audrey Hepburn were incredible. I love anybody that gets up and does something and gives it a go.
Which other women in the beauty industry inspire you?
I love Ruby Hammer and also her daughter, Reena Hammer. She understands how to run a beauty business, so she inspires me. I love Tia Green who did Nails Inc. Bobbi Brown, I think she is incredible, as is Pat McGrath, I mean look at what she has done!
Anybody that gets up, takes their vision, takes their dream and builds something, I think is somebody to be saluted. I am never frightened by other people that do well, I am not threatened, even if it was somebody in my own genre; I am never threatened by that, I rejoice. It spurs me on.
What is your favourite fragrance you have created for Jo Loves?
I love Pomelo and I love the one I am working on, I am working on one for 2017. I adore the diversity of Smoke Plum and Leather, too. It is so left field; men are loving it! People either love it or they don't, I don't think I have ever seen so many social media comments about a fragrance I have created.
What can we expect in the future from Jo Loves?
Well, we have signed with Net-A-Porter so we now have global distribution, we have also just gone on board Emirates. They are just amazing to work with, amazing. We are looking at China at the moment and obviously America - we go to the States 29 November, so you know you will see us become the global brand I have been talking about. But right at this minute in time I have to concentrate on the book. The book is what's going to make people see me as Jo the person, which is an important strategic point for us.
We have an idea for next year which I can't tell you about yet because I haven't finished one last thing in its creative process, but it's genius and is the most brilliant product I think I have ever created.
What else have we got on the horizon? Christmas products!
NOW SMELL THIS
December 9, 2016
3:50 pm
Jo Malone on Battling Breast Cancer and Her New Fragrance, Second Act
By Linda Wells
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Jo Malone. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Jo Malone is not a $470 four-wick candle or a Lime, Basil, and Mandarin cologne. She is a living, breathing person who started her adventures as an 8-year-old facialist-in-training to an 80-year-old skin-care queen. After selling her fragrance business to the Estée Lauder Companies in 1999, she has a third act, a collection of crazy-good scents under a new name, Jo Loves.
Malone documents her path to early success in Jo Malone: My Story (Simon & Schuster, November 29), a remarkably speedy trip, though one with some significant bumps.
She mixed her first mask (slippery elm powder, yogurt, avocado oil, jojoba oil, vitamin E, lemon juice, and honey) when she was barely tall enough to reach the kitchen counter of her parents’ government-subsidized apartment. By the time she was 10, she was cooking and jarring creams, ordering supplies, and paying the bills for her mother’s small facial operation. She was so singularly focused on facials and so deprived of anything but the most basic food that the first time she saw someone eat an avocado, “I was horrified,” she writes, thinking he had mistakenly consumed the ingredients for a mask. (She still smears mashed avocado on her skin when it’s dry.)
It didn’t take long before she was giving facials to a growing list of clients who included Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. “She invited me to Buckingham Palace, and there I was, sitting on the floor having a cup of tea with Fergie while she made a list of 20 clients. That was the beginning of my business,” Malone told me. Supermodels and celebrities soon filled her tiny salon.
But her real love, as anyone who’s sprayed Lime Basil on her pulse points knows, is fragrance. Malone has the nose of a bloodhound, able to identify and combine notes instinctively, even as a child. She can smell a leak by detecting the odor of damp plaster; she can predict rain and snow as reliably as a meteorologist. When she started creating her own fragrances in 1991, she did something wholly original, magnifying the ingredients rather than some notion of sex or power or sexual power — the common themes at the time. In this way, she made fragrance accessible to people who could imagine the key notes just by reading the name on the bottle (nutmeg and ginger, grapefruit, orange blossom). Malone could also be credited with helping to ignite the current trend in unpretentious niche fragrances. “Master perfumers said, ‘You have no idea how you’ve changed the fragrance world and influenced it without even realizing it,’” Malone said.
In 1999, Malone sold her business of 14 colognes, bath oils, lotions, and candles to the Estée Lauder Companies, a thrilling dream for any entrepreneur — and Jo Malone London quickly became a global phenomenon. No sooner had she popped the Champagne and bought herself diamond earrings than Malone discovered she had an aggressive form of breast cancer that required two long rounds of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. She was 38 years old. As a side effect of the treatment, her sense of smell flagged, along with her passion for the business. At the opening of the Madison Avenue boutique, “I looked around and saw my name everywhere — on the signs, the gift bags, and the product — and felt weirdly detached, as if this was somebody else’s life.”
She decided to walk away, a difficult break for Malone and, from other accounts, for the Estée Lauder team, too. “Deep inside of me, I knew I was making a mistake,” she told me. “I did underestimate the power of my connection to the brand. It had been my best friend, my teacher, my passion, and my one source of creativity.”
Malone had a five-year non-compete clause — “the worst five years of my life” — and spent them fumbling around, sometimes in a state of panic over her absent creative mojo. She made ice cream. (“I went through a real beetroot phase,” she says. “It was awful.”) She helped conceive and host a BBC series, High Street Dreams, that sounds a bit like a friendly Shark Tank. And she paced her apartment like a “caged tiger.”
During that time, she avoided even glancing at a Jo Malone London boutique from a taxi window. It was too upsetting. “I felt humbled and humiliated, because I did this to myself,” she says.
Her second act was harder to engineer, partly because she had to engineer it. Things finally clicked when she took a beach walk in Parrot Cay, in the Turks and Caicos, and envisioned the scent of the pomelo fruit combined with ocean air, lemongrass, and a squeeze of lime. The result, Pomelo, is still her favorite of the new bunch. “I wash the house with it. I wash the dog with it. It goes in the bucket with the oil,” she says.
Because Malone sold her name along with her business, she also had to come up with a new identity. During a brainstorming meeting, her 12-year-old son blurted out Jo Loves, an exuberant expression of positivity that stuck. And despite some missteps — including harsh red-and-black packaging that she eventually changed — she is back on that speedy path she knows so well.
The new Jo Love scents clearly come from the same brain that invented Jo Malone London. White Rose and Lemon Leaves is summery and sparkly, a fresh crowd-pleaser. Pink Vetiver is slightly peppery. Smoked Plum and Leather, masculine and gutsy, sprung from an experience Malone had while riding her horse in Montana and inhaling the scent of the leather saddle, the campfire smoke, and wild sage.
Malone likes to layer her fragrances, a technique she devised for her London boutique that she demonstrated on me. She sprayed my whole left arm with Pomelo, then skimmed over the path of the spray with a small, clean paintbrush to dry it. Next she squirted Pink Vetiver on the bristles of another paintbrush and stroked that over the Pomelo and on my neck. It was intimate and sensual, and it produced a deep, intricate fragrance.
Jo Loves colognes, lotions, cleansers, and candles are available online at Jo Loves and Net-a-Porter, and at her boutique in London at 42 Elizabeth Street.
Jo Malone: My Story
Emily Brock
Booklist.
113.5 (Nov. 1, 2016): p4.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
* Jo Malone: My Story. By Jo Malone. Nov. 2016.416p. Simon & Schuster, $27 (9781501110597). 338.04092.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Famed U.K. fragrance designer Malone has written an inspired autobiography detailing her humble beginnings and subsequent rise to the creme
de la creme of luxury retailers. The story is instantly engaging and relatable, with Malone emerging as the voice of a trusted friend. From a young
age, Malone learned to work hard and innovate to help her parents keep food on the table. After dropping out of school at 15, she survives the
only way she knows how: mixing face creams and giving facials. Her talent, paired with a highly sensitive nose and the partnership of a husband
with an intuition for business, would unexpectedly skyrocket Malone into the world of high-end luxury goods. The journey is full of ups and
downs, which Malone tackles with grace and optimism, remaining all the while unflaggingly honest about her faults. Throughout, Malone uses
evocative language that's sure to ignite readers' senses to an extent that's rare in nonfiction. This book is easily recommendable not only to those
interested in fragrance and cosmetics but also to entrepreneurs, creative types, and those who love an inspiring story of human spirit and
chutzpah.--Emily Brock
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Brock, Emily. "Jo Malone: My Story." Booklist, 1 Nov. 2016, p. 4+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471142712&it=r&asid=51aedf52f1059f6c2033b66517556a3e. Accessed 4 June
2017.
6/4/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1496597472425 2/6
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Books: Scent of success
Management Today.
(Nov. 1, 2016): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Haymarket Media Group
http://www.haymarket.com/home.aspx
Full Text:
Life's not always been a bed of roses for the fragrance entrepreneur Jo Malone, as she reveals in her candid and uplifting memoir, says Claire
Vero
My Story
Jo Malone
Simon & Schuster, pounds 20
I heard Jo Malone speak at a business event back in September 2013, eight months after launching my own brand, Aurelia Probiotic Skincare
Inspired by her words, I hung around afterwards, anxious to give her a selection of my products. However the enormous queue and chronic
morning sickness conspired against me; I just about managed to thrust a bag of samples into the hands of her husband Gary.
I never actually got to meet Malone so I was thrilled when her new book landed on my desk. I love reading memoirs and relish the uninterrupted
insight into another person's mind. My Story opens with a quote by French author and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Andre Gide: 'Man cannot
discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore,' and Malone's tale is one of pushing boundaries, of taking risks, of
determination.
She not only takes you on the journey of her business successes and plaudits but she lets you in on the emotional side of her life, like a trusted
friend. And that life has not been straightforward. She grew up on a council estate near Bexleyheath in Kent with a constant sense of struggle and
'just-about-getting-by'. She suffered from dyslexia, her father left, and her mother had a terrible breakdown. 'I felt like I became an adult around
the age of 10. From that time onwards, ordinary childhood memories are scant, replaced, or maybe eclipsed, by the responsibility of effectively
running our household and taking care of my little sister,' she writes. Malone doesn't shy away from recounting the low points, and the moments
of self-doubt. And that's what makes you connect so fully with her story: she's real.
Malone describes the excitement of opening her first store at 154 Walton Street, Chelsea, and her 'name-above-the-door' moment: 'We stood there,
half-crying, half-laughing, feeling elated. It felt like we were staking our flag into a personal summit ...' That rang so true to me; we opened our
first counter in Liberty beauty hall within 12 months of launching, a first in the store's history. It's still one of our most important retailers today.
I also found myself nodding in agreement as I read Malone's feelings of joy at the sound of ringing tills, the queues outside the door and
customers raving about fragrances. I remember hitting our first pounds 1min-sales milestone of Aurelia products; that joy that Malone describes
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pushed us on to achieve even more.
The second half of the book talks candidly about selling up to Estee Lauder - the deal that 'nobody saw coming'. Malone opens up about her first
meeting with Leonard Lauder at his penthouse apartment in the Upper East Side, the 'tossing and turning' over whether she should sell, the
morning stroll around Central Park the day after the papers had been signed, and her new-found wealth; 'where to sit on the plane, what holidays
to experience, what fashionable clothes to buy'. Then came motherhood - and finding a lump in her right breast.
Reading about Malone's gut-wrenching struggle with cancer - the chemo, the double mastectomy, her son shaving her head ('giving Mummy a
buzz cut') - left me sobbing. She writes movingly, but never self-pityingly, of those dark times. She's brings you into her world and it's utterly
compulsive. To anyone going through dark or stormy days themselves, her determination and vision are inspiring. She wants us to get up if we're
knocked down, just as she did.
We read about Malone's MBE ('When I read the typewritten words explaining how her Majesty the Queen was honouring me with an MBE, I
laughed out loud. Someone was clearly having an elaborate joke ...') and reigniting her creative passion to start her latest venture, Jo Loves. With
her innovative 'fragrance tapas' experience and 'candle shot' studio, she clearly hasn't lost her entrepreneurial edge. 'I suppose I haven't done badly
for the girl who was once told by a teacher that she wouldn't make anything of her life.'
The other day, I happened to notice the Andre Gide quote embossed on a leather book in a bookshop window. I bought two, sending one to
Malone with a note saying how she had inspired me; I used the other to write down my vision for Aurelia for the next few years and I'm slowly
ticking goals off this list with the help of an incredible team of colleagues. We've won more than 50 beauty awards but we're not stopping there. I
hope Malone's fascinating story inspires many more entrepreneurs.
Claire Vero is the founder and CEO of Aurelia Probiotic Skincare. She was one of MT's 35 Women Under 35 in 2014
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Books: Scent of success." Management Today, 1 Nov. 2016, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468540056&it=r&asid=2987d8715ee3932f5ef4d64baa2aa0f9. Accessed 4 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468540056
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Jo Malone: JO MALONE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Jo Malone JO MALONE Simon & Schuster (Adult Nonfiction) 27.00 11, 29 ISBN: 978-1-5011-1059-7
Turning yourself into an upscale brand is extremely difficult. Fragrance guru and entrepreneur Malone chronicles how she did just that.Gifted
with a pronounced sense of smell and the desire for a better life, the author worked hard to build a fragrance empire. Malone deftly mines her
early family life for the inspiration that laid the foundation for her success. Early on, she learned the “art of the sale” while
working alongside her father in his small stall selling his artwork in a working-class London neighborhood. But it was her mother’s
passion for skin care that led Malone to a meeting with Madame Lubatti, who operated an exclusive salon in a posh district of London. Lubatti
became an important mentor for the young girl, and it was in her lab where Malone trained her sense of smell and learned the art of developing
face creams and masks. However, times were tough for the author’s family. Finances were extremely tight, and her parents’
relationship was volatile. Malone struggled in school, later learning she had dyslexia. Still, as she notes, she was an entrepreneur by the age of 11.
At 20, she went into business as a beauty therapist and partner in her mother’s business. The enterprise was successful, but tensions
between Malone and her family created a deep rift. The author and her husband eventually broke away, building their own business
manufacturing and selling creams and fragrances. The author provides a solid narrative detailing the difficulties and rewards encountered while
creating a business from the ground up. By the mid-1990s, Malone was courted by major department stores, and she appeared on the Oprah show.
She became partners with Bergdorf Goodman in New York and eventually sold her company to Estee Lauder in 1999. Despite the millions she
received, running a business is Malone’s passion, and she recounts starting over again with a new fragrance-based venture. A moving
and revealing account of the author’s passion for business and personal success.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Jo Malone: JO MALONE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463216115&it=r&asid=65abb91aac1513173904e27c465d2562. Accessed 4 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463216115
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Jo Malone: My Story
Publishers Weekly.
263.39 (Sept. 26, 2016): p79.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Jo Malone: My Story
Jo Malone. Simon & Schuster, $27 (416p) ISBN 978-1-5011-1059-7
Malone, creator of the Jo Malone London and Jo Loves fragrances, takes readers on the journey from her modest childhood in England in the
1960s to her global success. At a young age, Malone struggled academically and doubted herself because of dyslexia, but soon she found her
passion: working alongside her mother to concoct lotions and facial creams. After coping with her father's charming but feckless career choices,
and emotionally losing her mother to a stroke and nervous breakdown, Malone never gave up as she dove head first into starting her own
business, a skin care clinic, with the help and support of her husband, Gary. Soon they moved the clinic from their front room to a storefront in
London, where she eventually created her signature fragrances. She describes with intimate detail how she succeeded in creating a global brand
as an ambitious and tireless entrepreneur. With a humble tone, she offers wisdom and important lessons on starting a business and achieving
international success. She candidly explores all facets of her life, including postpartum depression, surviving breast cancer, and enduring a dual
mastectomy and months of chemotherapy. Her story is full of tender moments and hope. This book will excite aspiring entrepreneurs seeking
inspiration. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Jo Malone: My Story." Publishers Weekly, 26 Sept. 2016, p. 79. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA465558247&it=r&asid=e82e39c2e4547d6c9ae6a64bfdc27de7. Accessed 4 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A465558247
Jo Malone: My Story ~ book review
Posted by Angela on 12 December 2016 20 Comments
Jo Malone and My Story book cover
Why do you read an autobiography? For me, it comes down to two reasons. First, the author might have lived at the center of history or in unusual circumstances, and I’m fascinated by her perspective. The other reason is that the author’s life and the way it’s told simply make a good story. This kind of autobiography travels an arc and gives the reader nuggets of life's truth that resonate. Jo Malone: My Story offers us tastes from both of these categories, but, ultimately, feels like a PR job about a really nice, entrepreneurial woman, someone I’d love to know, but no one I need to read a whole book about.
Jo Malone: My Story is written in a clear, approachable way with a taste of the British working girl about it. The book covers Malone’s childhood with an aesthetician mother and gambler father; shows Malone giving facials in her home and building her clientele; follows her through breast cancer; covers the launch of Jo Malone London and its sale to Estée Lauder; and ends with her new brand, Jo Loves.
So, let’s go back to the two reasons that make an autobiography compelling: circumstances and story. For circumstances, Jo Malone was the CEO of a successful company and launched another company. She was recognized by the queen. She was raised in a working class family and did her part to keep the family afloat. She had celebrity clients. In short, her circumstances are interesting if you’re part of her circle, but not especially unusual. Plus, gossip seekers will want to go elsewhere. No juicy bits here.
Now, for story. An engaging story pulls me into someone’s — fictional or real — life. It comforts me by showing aspects of life I’ve experienced, letting me relive them or reminding me I’m not alone. Or it unpacks emotion-rich situations I haven’t lived and gives me new understanding. A good story rings with truth.
Malone’s recounting of her bout with breast cancer does show this truth. She’s open about her fear and unreasonableness, and about her gratitude and endurance. It still feels a shade removed, but I think cancer survivors and their families will appreciate these chapters. Another super short, but touching chapter recounts her confusing feeling after giving birth. For the most part, though, Malone doesn’t let the reader in. We’re not confidants.
“Enough!” some of you are saying. “What about perfume?” Malone spends a paragraph, tops, explaining how evaluators provide the link between a nose and a client, and she’s not specific about it, but you understand that she conceives a fragrance, but a perfumer designs it. She doesn’t name the noses she’s worked with.
She also talks about Estée Lauder’s acquisition of Jo Malone London. (Pomegranate Noir was the last fragrance Malone created for the line.) According to the book, it was a dreamy transition and Evelyn Lauder was the ideal business partner and a solid friend. Malone’s contract with Estée Lauder specified that she had to wait five years before heading another brand. This explains the wait for Jo Loves.
Finally, Jo Malone: My Life contains a page scented with Jo Loves Pomelo, and it smells good, with a flavor of an old-fashioned chypre. I’m going to hunt down a sample.
Do you read autobiographies? Are there any you’d recommend?
LifestyleBooks
My Story by Jo Malone - review
An invaluable manual for any would-be entrepreneur, says Katie Law
KATIE LAW Thursday 29 September 2016 16:53 BST0 comments
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Fighting her way up: Jo Malone
For many of us a world without scented candles is impossible to imagine — specifically, a world without a Jo Malone scented candle. The woman responsible for them started, as many entrepreneurs do, from humble beginnings.
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The elder of two girls, Joanne Malone was born in 1963 and grew up in Bexleyheath. Her father was a draughtsman for a double glazing company while her mother worked for the gas board before becoming a beauty therapist. Money was tight. Jo, diagnosed dyslexic as a teenager, struggled academically at school. Her parents’ marriage was fraught: her mother was prone to depression and Jo would act as a go-between for her feuding parents.
She left school at 15 and worked for her mother, learning how to mix face creams and developing both her sense of smell and a desire to live a better life. She moved closer to central London and swept floors for high-end grocer Justin de Blank for £19 a week, earning extra cash as a dogsitter for a rich woman in Belgravia, before working at posh florist Pulbrook & Gould.
All this gave her a glimpse “into a privileged world that I wanted to know more about”. She enrolled at a Bible school in Kennington, where she met Gary Willcox, a surveyor, whom she married in 1985. Both her faith and her husband remain central to her life.
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She then became her mother’s business partner but the relationship was so turbulent that she eventually left, taking on her mother’s £30,000 debt with her — they have never been reconciled. The debt took five years to pay off but, equipped with the basic knowledge and a handful of clients’ names, she set up on her own in a rented room in Sloane Square. Sarah Ferguson was an early client and throughout the Nineties the business flourished.
She opened her first shop in 1994, went into Bergdorf Goodman in 1998 and, in 1999, sold out to Estée Lauder while continuing as its creative director. In 2001 she gave birth to a son, Josh. “As a career woman who had dedicated every waking hour to the growth of the business and fragrances, I had never yearned for motherhood,” she writes, although that soon changed.
In 2003 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent two bouts of chemotherapy and had both breasts removed. Figuring that she needed time to relax, she bowed out of the business but realised that idleness was the last thing she wanted. As soon as a five-year lock-out clause, which prevented her from working in the beauty business ended, she launched her new brand, Jo Loves, which continues to thrive, as clearly does she, today.
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